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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J. 



a 



THE POEMS 



ROBERT NICOLL. 



POEMS 



ROBERT NICOLL. 



" Finds tongues in trees— books in the running brooks- 
Sermons in stones— and good in everything." 

As You Like It. 



THIRD EDITION : WITH NUMEROUS ADDITIONS, 



A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR 



EDINBURGH: 
WILLIAM TAIT, PRINCE'S STREET: 

SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., LONDON. 
MDCCCXLIII. 



II 






EDINBURGH 

Printed by "William Tait, Prince's Street. 



** 



TOMES. JOHNSTONE, 



AUTHORESS OF " ELI2ABETH DE BRUCE," ETC.. 



THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 



BY THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 



[The Poems marked thus* in the Table of Contents are all Posthumous pieces.] 
Sketch of the Life of Robert Nicoll, . 



Page 

II 



PART I. 

POEMS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 

AND OP THE CONDITION AND FEELINGS, OF THE 

SCOTTISH PEASANTRY. 



The Ha' Bible, 






69 


The Toun where I was Born, 


71 


Youth's Dreams, 


73 


Orde Braes, • 




75 


*The Place that I love best, . 




: 76 


The folk o' Ochtergaen, 




79 


The Spinning-wheel, 




80 


*Our Auld Hearthstane, 




82 


*We'll a' go pu' the Heather, 




85 


My Hame, 




86 


*My Grandfather, 




88 


*Our Auld Gudeman, 




.90 


*Janet Dunbar, 




91 


Janet Macbean, 




93 


Minister Tam, 




94 


The Dominie, 




96 


*The Smith, 




98 


*Auld Donald, ♦ 




99 


^Bonnie Bessie Lee, , 






100 


Fiddler Johnny, 




• * • 


101 


*The Provost, 




• a 


103 


*The Bailie, 






105 


*The Hopes of Age, . 




• • • 


106 


*Home Thoughts, 
The Battle Word, . 






107 






108 



PART II. 



SONGS, CHIEFLY SCOTTISH. 



The Muir o' Gorse and Broom, 

The Beloved One, 

*The Making o' the Hay, 

*Menie, 

*Down by the Wood, 

My Auld Gudewife, 

The Courtin' Time, 

The Bonnie Hieland Hills. 

The Thistle, 

The Heather of Scotland, 

The Bagpipes, 

Fading Away, 

Regrets, 

'The Hieland Plaid, 

What shall I do ? 

The Wooing, 

The Lament of Benedick the Married Man, 

There's never an end o' her Flytin an' Din, 

A Maiden's Meditations, 

My Minnie mauna ken, 

*Kate Carnegie, 

The Maid I daurna name, 

*The Packman, 

The Bonnie Rowan Bush, 

The Auld Beggar Man, 

Ye winna let me be, 

The Banks of Tay, . 

The Lass o' Turrit Ha', 

Mary Hamilton, 

Janet, 

The False One, 

Summer Wooing, 

The Prisoner's Song, 

We are Brethren a', . 

Steadfastness, 

The Honest and True, 

The World's fu' o' Skaith and Toil, 

*The Shepherdess, . 

*Be still, be still, thou beating Heart 

To the Lady of my Heart, 

A Castle in the Air, . 

The Lasses, 



110 
111 
113 
114 
ib. 
115 
117 
119 
120 
121 
123 
124 
ib. 
126 
127 
128 
131 
133 
134 
136 
138 
139 
140 
14 
143 
144 
145 
147 
149 
151 
152 
154 
156 
158 
160 
161 
162 
163 
164 
165 
166 
168 



CONTENTS. 



PART III. 



POEMS, CHIEFLY IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT, ILLUSTRATIVE OF 
FEELINGS OF THE INTELLIGENT AND RELIGIOUS AMONG 
THE WORKING-CLASSES OF SCOTLAND, 











Page 


Stanzas on the Birthday of Burns, . . 170 


*We are Lowly, 








171 


We'll mak' the Warld better yet 








173 


The Hero, .... 








174 


*OurKing, .... 








176 


*The Puir Folk, 








173 


The Bursting of the Chain, . 








180 


We are Free, 








182 


*Endurance, 








183 


*A Bacchanalian, 








185 


*The Poor Man's Death-bed, 








186 


*The Cairn, .... 








188 


I Dare not Scorn, 








190 


*The People's Anthem, 








191 


*The Questioner : a Chant, . 








192 


PART IV. 


SERIOUS AND PATHETIC POEMS. 


'Thoughts of Heaven, ... 194 


Arouse Thee, Soul ! . 








197 


Visions, .... 








198 


*The Herd Lassie, . 








200 


I am Blind, . 








202 


Wild Flowers, 








204 


*The Anemone, 








206 


Time's Changes, 








207 


The Forsaken, 








211 


A Thought, . 








214 


*The Thought Spirit, 








215 


*Forest Musings, 








216 


The Sick Child's Dream, 








218 


The Mother, 








221 


The Bereaved, 








223 


The Parting, 








224 


The Grave of Burns, 








226 


*The Village Church, 






227 


A Dirge, 






229 


My Auld Gudewife. . 






230 


God is Everywhere, . 








909 



vm 


CONTENTS, 








Page 


My only Sister, ..... 234 


A Day among the Mountains, 








236 


The Widow's Child, 








240 


The Mountain Orphan, 










242 


The Mother's Monody, 










245 


♦My Lily, . 










247 


♦The Primrose, 










249 


♦The Nameless Rivulet, 










250 


♦The Bramble, 










254 


♦Alice, 










255 


The Dying Maiden, . 










259 


♦A Woodland Walk, 










261 


PART V. 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 


♦Thomas Clarkson, ..... 268 


Thoughts and Fancies : Milton : a Sonnet. 




270 


Despondency : a Sonnet, 




271 


♦The Morning Star, . . . . 




ib. 


The Exile's Song, 






274 


The Death- Song of Hofer, 






275 


The Swiss Mother to her Son, 






276 


The German Ballad-Singer, . 






279 


♦The Mother's Memories of her Infant Child 






280 


A Romaunt, ..... 






282 


♦The Mossy Stane, . 






283 


The Wanderer, .... 






285 


The Ruined Manor-House, . 






288 


♦The Saxon Chapel, .... 






290 


Madness, , 






292 


♦Life's Pilgrimage, .... 






294 


*Song for a Summer Evening, 






297 


♦It's nae Fun, that ! ... 






298 


♦Sonnet to Mr. J. R, F., . . . 






300 


♦The Linnet, ..... 






ib. 


♦Death, 


. 








302 



SKETCH 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 



" I have written my heart in my Poems ; and rude, un- 
finished, and hasty as they are, it can be read there/' Thus 
wrote Robert Nicoll to a stranger whose literary talents 
he admired, and to whom he had sent a copy of his poems, 
when that individual, appreciating the gift, requested to 
learn something more of the giver. 

There is certainly no collection of poems in the language 
which more vividly reflects the character, tastes, and tenden- 
cies of the writer at the age at which they were composed. 
And Mcoll's future life was so brief that there was not time 
for material change, although he could ever have become 
any other man than the one indicated by his youthful 
poetry ; — than the lover and worshipper of unadorned 
Nature, the poet of the social and domestic affections ; and, 
above all, the apostle of the moral, and, of what he con- 
sidered no mean part of the self- same thing, the political, 
regeneration of society. But if his heart may be read in 
his book, that book is also the substantial record of his life ; 
and an attempt to illustrate its contents from personal 
knowledge, and by a few facts and gleanings from his 

B 



1 2 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

scanty correspondence, is all that is proposed in the present 
sketch. 

Nicoll's life was as simple and uneventful, as it was short, 
bright, and unspotted. His future biographer will have 
few events to relate, and no youthful follies or frailties to 
extenuate, or none that his friends could perceive, — and he 
never had an enemy. His moral and intellectual qualities 
were in all respects happily balanced. He had none of 
the oddities or eccentricities of self-taught men ; and his 
sterling good sense was at least commensurate with his 
genius, and with his mental activity and energy. He was 
one of those youths of whom the most prosaic might have 
safely predicted that, if life and health were spared, he 
must, in spite of the dangerous gift of poetic genius, become 
a prosperous, and, in any case, a good and a respected man ; 
for he possessed, in ample measure, those qualities which 
ensure success in life of the highest kind, and in the best 
way. 

But youths and men like Robert Nicoll do not, even in 
his favoured native land, spring out of the earth in a genial, 
warm morning, like a crop of mushrooms. God had en- 
dowed him with many precious gifts ; but these might either 
have long lain dormant, or have been for ever extinguished, 
save for the added blessings which called them into early 
activity. The discipline of adversity was not wanting ; 
and among the happy influences that were around his 
childhood, was having a mother worthy of such a son. 
To his mother, Nicoll, in after-life, attributed whatever of 
distinction he had attained. Thus, the theory, whether 
fanciful or not, that the mother is her children's mental 
ancestor, receives another confirmation in the case of the 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 13 

subject of this sketch. There is, however, no fancy in 
saying, that his mother was his first and best instructor ; 
his educator in the highest and widest sense of the term. 

Robert Nicoll was born on the 7th January, 1814, in 
the farm-house of Little Tulliebeltane, in the parish of 
Auchtergaven, in Perthshire, which lies nearly half-way 
between Perth and Dunkeld. His father, Mr. Robert 
Nicoll, was at that period a farmer, in comfortable circum- 
stances for his station and locality ; his mother was Grace 
Fenwick, one of the daughters of that venerable Seceder, 
" Elder John," of whom Nicoll speaks so frequently and af- 
fectionately in his poems. Robert was the second son, in a 
family of nine children. His elder brother died in childhood, 
and Robert thus became the " eldest son." Both the families 
from which he immediately sprung had been settled for 
generations in the same neighbourhood, and counted a long 
pedigree of the kind that is still the proudest boast of rural 
Scotland, — decent, honest, God-fearing people. By the 
recollection of his mother, Robert, when nine months old, 
could speak as infants speak ; at eighteen months he knew 
his letters ; and when five years old he could read the New 
Testament. His mother had up to this time had leisure 
to be the teacher of her intelligent and lively child : but 
now woful reverse was impending over the family. Mr. 
Nicoll had become security, to the amount of five or six 
hundred pounds, for a connexion by marriage, who failed 
and absconded ; and the utter ruin of his own family was 
the almost immediate consequence. He gave up his entire 
property to satisfy the creditors of this individual ; he lost 
even the lease of his farm, and, with his wife and several 
young children, left the farm-house, and became a day- 



14 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

labourer on the fields he had lately rented ; with nothing 
to sustain his wife and himself save the consciousness of 
unblemished and unblamed integrity. Robert Nicoll was 
thus, from the date of his earliest recollection, the son of 
a very poor man, the inmate of a very lowly home, the 
eldest of a struggling family. Field-labour was the daily 
lot of his father, and at certain seasons of the year, of his 
mother also, as far as was compatible with the care of her 
young and increasing family ; and the children, as soon as 
they were considered fit for labour, were, one by one, set to 
work. Yet that goodness and mercy which temper the 
severest lot of the virtuous poor were around them ; and, 
at the lowest ebb of their fortunes, many of the best bless- 
ings of life must have mingled with, and sweetened, their 
toils and hardships. That could not have been other than 
a cheerful as well as a happy home and hearth, from which 
sprung the germs of Nicoll's poetry, — his songs, his de- 
scriptions of rustic manners, and his humorous portraits of 
rustic contemporaries. 

But it is wished, as far as possible, that Nicoll should 
here tell his own story. In 1834, and when Robert had just- 
completed his twentieth year, Mr. Johnstone of Edinburgh, 
who had received many communications from him, was 
induced to make some inquiry about an obscure youth in 
Perth, not yet quite perfect in his orthography, but who 
wrote very promising verses, and, what was much more 
remarkable, vigorous radical prose, breathing a high moral 
tone. In reply to Mr. Johnstone's inquiry, young Nicoll 
sent him a sketch of his history. Having told of his 
father's misfortunes, he says : — " He was ruined ' out of 
house and hold/ From that day to this, he has gained his 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 15 

own and his children's Dread by the sweat of his brow. I 
was then too young to know the full extent of our mis- 
fortunes ; hut young as I was, I saw and felt a great 
change. My mother, in her early years, was an ardent 
book-woman. When she became poor, her time was too 
precious to admit of its being spent in reading, and I gene- 
rally read to her while she was working ; for she took care 
that her children should not want education. Ever since 
I can remember, I was a keen and earnest reader. Before 
I was six years of age, I read every book that came in my 
way, and had gone twice through my grandfather s small 
collection, though I had never been at school. 

" When I had attained my sixth year, I was sent to the 
parish school, which was three miles distant, and I gene- 
rally read going and returning. To this day, I can walk 
as quickly as my neighbours, and read at the same time 
with the greatest ease. I was sent to the herding at seven 
years of age, and continued herding all summer, and at- 
tending school all winter with my 'fee' " 

In a few notes written by Nicoll's younger brother, Mr. 
William Nicoll, in adverting to Robert's childhood, it is 
said : — " Even at this early period, Robert was a voracious 
reader, and never went to the herding without a book in 
his plaid ; and he generally read both going and returning 
from school. From his studious disposition, though a 
favourite with the other boys from his sweetness of temper, 
he hardly ever went by any other name than The Minister. 
When about twelve, he was taken from herding, and sent 
to work in the garden of a neighbouring proprietor. With 
the difference, that he had now less time for reading than 
before, the change in his employment made very little 



16 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

change in his habits. He went to school during the winter 
as usual." 

In one of those winters he began the Latin Rudiments ; 
and, besides writing and accounts, he seems to have acquired 
some knowledge of geometry. We should, however, say, 
that Nicoll knew little of any science, and nothing of any 
language, save English, and his own beautiful Doric. He 
never made any pretensions of the sort. His slight acquain- 
tance with the Latin Rudiments, must, however, have been 
of use to him when he subsequently taught himself grammar 
from Cobbett's useful Compendium. But his regular school- 
learning, whatever its amount, was all acquired at intervals, 
and in the dull season of the year, when he could not work 
out of doors. 

His brother mentions, that, when Robert was about 
fourteen, he attended a young student named Marshall, — 
a person of great talent and promise, — who opened a school 
in the neighbouring village, and who died in a year or two 
afterwards, much regretted. Their connexion was more 
like that of friends than of master and scholar ; and com- 
paring his own slender attainments with those of Marshall, 
Robert learnt the important secret of his own deficiencies, 
and was stimulated to more strenuous efforts. After Mr. 
Marshall had removed to another part of the country, 
Robert attended, for a short time, at schools taught by two 
other young men ; and this, with six weeks at the parish 
school of Monedie, comprised the whole of his school-edu- 
cation ; which, casual and slight as it may seem, gave him 
the elements of knowledge, and the invaluable power of 
self- improvement, — all that, to a mind like his, was essen- 
tial. Before this time, and when he was between eleven 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 17 

and twelve, a book-club had been established in the village 
of the parish ; and in his letter to Mr. Johnstone, he says, 
" When I had saved a sufficient quantity of silver coin, I 
became a member. I had previously devoured all the books 
to be got in the parish for love, and I soon devoured all 
those in the library for money. Besides, by that time I 
began to get larger 'fees,' (the Scotch word is the best,) 
and I was able to pay Is. 6d. a month, for a month or two, 
to a bookseller in Perth, for reading. From him I got 
many new works ; and among the rest the Waverley Novels. 
With them I was enchanted. They opened up new sources 
of interest and thought, of which I before knew nothing. 
I can yet look with no common feelings on the w r ood, in 
which, while herding, I read Kenil worth." 

Was that beautiful fiction, which, next to the Bride of 
Lammermoor, is the deepest tragedy that Scott has penned, 
ever more truly appreciated in the stately saloons and 
splendid drawing-rooms of grandeur and nobility, than by 
that poor, little herd-boy? Has it ever, in such places, 
given equal pleasure ? Greater it could not give. 

When about thirteen, Nicoll began to scribble his 
thoughts, and to make rhymes ; and his brother relates, 
that he was so far honoured as, at this age, to become the 
correspondent of a' provincial newspaper, the manager of 
which, in requital of small scraps of parish news, sent him 
an occasional number of the journal. We cannot tell how 
Robert obtained this distinguished post ; but the editor 
afterwards found a correspondent more suitable, at least in 
point of age, and Robert was deprived of his office. His 
brother states, that he was somewhat chagrined at the 
abrupt disruption of this, his first connexion w r ith the press. 



18 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

It was probably in consequence of his acquaintance with 
Mr. Marshall, that the change thus described in his letter 
to Mr. Johnstone took place. "As nearly as I can re- 
member, I began to write my thoughts when I was thirteen 
years of age, and continued to do so at intervals until I was 
sixteen, when, despairing of ever being able to write the 
English language correctly, I made a bonfire of my papers, 
and wrote no more till I was eighteen. 

" My excursive course of reading, among both poets and 
prosers, gave me many pleasures of which my fellows knew 
nothing ; but it likewise made me more sensitive to the 
insults and degradations that a dependent must suffer. 
You cannot know the horrors of dependence ; but I have 
felt them, and have registered a vow in heaven, that I shall 
be independent, though it be but on a crust and water. 

" To further my progress in life, I bound myself ap- 
prentice to Mrs. J. H. Robertson, wine-merchant and grocer 
in Perth. When I came to Perth, I bought Cobbett's Eng- 
lish Grammar, and by constant study soon made myself 
master of it, and then commenced writing as before ; and 
you know the result. 

" When I first came to Perth, a gentleman lent me his 
right to the Perth Library, and thus I procured many 
works I could not get before ; Milton's Prose Works, 
Locke's Works, and, what I prized more than all, a few of 
Bentham's, with many other works in various departments 
of literature and science, which I had not had the good for- 
tune to read before. 

"I was twenty years of age in the month of January 
last ; and my apprenticeship expires in September next. 
By that time I hope, by close study, to have made myself 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 19 

a good French scholar ; and I intend, if I can raise the 
monies, to emigrate to the United States of North America. 

" I do not rate my literary productions too highly ; but 
they have all a definite purpose— that of trying to raise the 
many. I am a Radical in every sense of the term, and I 
must stand by my Order. I am employed in working for 
my mistress from seven o'clock in the morning until nine 
o'clock at night ; and I must therefore write when others 
are asleep. During winter, to sit without lire is a hard 
task : hut summer is now coming — and then ! 

" It may, perhaps, appear ridiculous to fill a letter with 
babblings of oneself ; but when a person who has never 
known any one interest themselves in him, who has ex- 
isted as a cipher in society, is kindly asked to tell his own 

story, how he will gossip ! To 

Mrs. Johnstone and yourself, what can I say- in return for 
your kindness ? Nothing ; but if ever I can return you 
good for good, I will do it." 

Such was the first letter that Nicoll had probably ever 
written to any one save his brother, then a school-boy, or 
his mother. When he says, " I bound myself apprentice," 
he relates the simple fact ; though a step of this impor- 
tant kind is usually taken by parents in behalf of their 
children. But by this time he had been for nine or ten 
years earning " fees," the gentle name for wages in the 
rural parts of Scotland ; and probably he was also in the 
habit of looking out for employment for himself. The 
intelligent children of the poor early acquire habits of self- 
reliance and independence, of which those in different cir- 
cumstances can have no idea. Nay, besides acting for 
himself, Robert, as his mind expanded in the wider field of 



20 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

observation and actual business which Perth afforded Mm, 
acted in some respects for the whole family, some of whom, 
as they became fit for business, subsequently followed him 
into Perth in capacities nearly similar to his own. By a 
simple, and yet energetic and thoughtful deed for a lad of 
his years, he laid the foundation of a fortunate change in 
the circumstances of his family. He perceived how miser- 
ably small were the gains of his parents from mere out- 
door labour ; and, with two pounds which he had carefully 
saved up, he induced his mother to commence a little shop 
in her cottage at Tulliebeltane, and to become a regular 
attendant at the weekly market of Perth, where she could 
dispose of those rural commodities which she might pur- 
chase or procure in exchange for her groceries and other 
small wares. This proved a great resource in enabling this 
excellent person to bring up and educate her younger chil- 
dren ; all of whom have received a better, or a more syste- 
matic education than did Robert, and this without abating 
in the least their early habits of industry. Robert's educa- 
tion, it will be seen, might, from an early period, very safely 
have been left to himself. 

Nicoll's letters from Perth to his brother William afford 
a few passing glimpses of his probationary years, and of 
his habits of thought, and his aspirations while bright vi- 
sions were rising before his youthful fancy, from out the 
clearing mists of futurity. "When he had been about a year 
at his apprenticeship, he thus gives William sage counsel 
as to the best method of pursuing his studies, and reports 
upon his own progress : — 

" I received your learned and [a mis-spelled French 

word] epistle ; and I must confess I was agreeably sur- 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 21 

prised by its contents ; inasmuch as you have this week 
discovered that nothing can be accomplished without la- 
bour. For, in your former letter, you seemed to think you 
could work Bonnycastle as you would a cart-horse. But 
why despair, my pretty fellow ? Commence with Practical 
Surveying, and read on to the end, and think attentively 
as you read, and I will bet you two to one, that in a month 
you will have it all in your head like a horn." After some 
good advice about systematizing his studies, the student is 
recommended not to exalt memory above the reasoning 
faculty ; and thus exhorted : — " But do you think, and 
engrave the principle on the tables of your heart, from 
which nothing can ever again efface it ! That is the man- 
ner of proceeding I have taken ; and I every day feel the 
good effects of it ; and if life and strength be spared me, 
there is something that whispers that I may yet, at some 
future period, distinguish myself, either by prose or verse^ 
in the republic of letters. 

" Perhaps you wont believe me, but I declare to you 
that I am grown very industrious. After this fashion, I 
read a good deal in the morning while sluggards are snor- 
ing ; all day I attend to my business ; and in the fore-nights 
[the early part of the evening] I learn my grammar ; while 
the morning of Sunday is spent in writing hymns, or other 
harmless poetical pieces. Would you have thought it — 1 9 
even /, am reckoned in Perth, a very early riser. Tell it 
not in the Coates — proclaim it not in the gates of Tullie- 
beltane ! I hope you will pardon the inaccuracies of this 
letter, as I have never given it a second reading. By the 
by, I will send you one of my darling MS. poems one of 
these days. Now don't laugh." 



22 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

The reader need not be reminded that these extracts are 
from the hasty and unrestrained communications of one 
country boy to another still younger than himself, and his 
brother. But as genuine bits of a young mind of no com- 
mon order, they are precious. 

The Reform agitation, an era in the history of mind in 
Great Britain the effects of which yet remain to be devel- 
oped, was now at the height ; and Nicoll, prepared by his 
previous studies and ruminations, though they had not 
been directly political, in May 1832, writes to his brother, 
first speaking in the usual way of the difficulty of writing 
a letter, when one has nothing to say, till he recollects, like 
a philosopher of eighteen, " that no one who looks upon his 
brethren of mankind, and the beauties of the earth, with 
an inquiring eye, can ever be at a loss for a subject," — and 
launches forth : — 

" To look upon mankind — to observe the various airs 
they give themselves, is indeed calculated to make a per- 
son a misanthrope. The chief of an Indian tribe daily goes 
to his tent-door and points out to the sun the path he is to 
travel for the day ; and the despots of Europe wish to 
point out to mankind the road till time shall be no longer. 
The head prince of a village, or the lord of a few acres, 
equally with those, rule, in mind as well as in body, the 
crouching wretches who labour unseen ; and all combine 
to keep themselves uppermost, at the expense of their fel- 
low-creatures, unheeding though misery may follow their 
path : that is nothing compared to self-aggrandizement. 
And those who submit to be thus tyrannized over, what 
are they ? we are tempted to ask. Are they men who lis- 
ten to every word as if it proceeded from God — who obey 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 23 

every motion as if it were one from the Deity ? They are 
not men : they are slaves, in every sense of the word, be- 
cause they have made themselves so when God created them 
freemen." 

Having followed this theme at greater length, and con- 
cluded with a well-known quotation from Campbell — - 

" Fierce in his eye the fire of valour burns, 
And as the slave departs the man returns," — 

the young Radical philosopher turns to another and a cog- 
nate topic. " To see the power of riches — to see how their 
possessor is adored, is followed, and caressed ; to see him 
indulge in every vice, in every folly, and followed and 
caressed still : — And to see the same man — still the same- 
stripped by fortune of the riches he bestowed upon his 
[vices,] where, then, are the crowds who follow in his 
train ? where are those who followed him and applauded 
his very blasphemies ? Why, they are gone to follow others 
like in manners ; and to laugh at him whom they have 
ruined for this world and the next. To look on such a 
picture is enough to make men curse the name of men who 
turn God's moral world into a wilderness, His image into 
a devil, and his word into a cloak for their practices ! But 
no, we will not curse ; we look on men as brothers, and 
leave them to their God." 

In the Spring of 1832, and when Robert was consequently 
eighteen, he writes his brother thus :— 

" In your last letter you seem to think that I have given 
up all thoughts of America ; but I must tell you such is 
not the case. My mother used to say I was very fickle ; 
but if I were not still in the thoughts of going there, I 



24 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

would deserve the name of fickleness indeed." Having 
dwelt on the advantages of America over his own country, 
" Scotland," as he says, " though it be," for a man who has 
nothing to depend on hut his industry and talents, he con- 
cludes, — " If a person is clever and behaves himself, he is 
as sure of a competence as I am sure of my being a poet ; 
and that is sure enough, in all conscience ! 
You may laugh in your sleeve at my poetry ; but ' wait 
a wee,' and mayhap you may laugh on the wrong side of 

your mouth, as Cobbett says of his political enemies. 

Poetry is one of the greatest earthly blessings that God 
bestows upon man. Poets are generally poor men ; but 
none of them would give up their fancy, imagination, or 
whatever it is that forms a poet, for all the riches of Gol- 
conda's mines. You have heard of Coleridge. He is a 
scholar than whom there are few better ; but, by devoting 
his time to the muses, he has never yet been, as I may say, 
independent. Yet this unfortunate son of genius says, — 
'Poetry has soothed my afflictions, heightened my joys, 
and thrown a broad and beautiful halo over the best and 
worst scenes of my life/ 

" But you must not suppose, for all that, that I will not 
work while I write ; for, as Thomas Moore says in the 
midst of a sentimental love song, ' We must all dine/ So 
say I ; and though Moore has often been laughed at, for 
the ridiculous expression, I am almost tempted to think it 
the most sensible thing he has ever written. 

" I get on trippingly with my grammar ; and always as 
I proceed I feel myself understanding it better; and I hope 
I may yet be a good grammarian. If once learned and 
practised, I will not be afraid, if health be spared me, to 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 25 

fight my way through the world. By the way, I 

think it would he the hest policy for you to write a little 
better, and a little closer.* As to America my plan is this. 
I will try and get a good engagement for a year or two, 
and then, when I have got as much cash as will carry me, 
go to it ; and when I can get myself comfortahly settled, 
you and the rest may come out also without fear, as you 
would have a home awaiting you. But this is always sup- 
posing we get no encouragement at home. Now for poetry." 
A stanza on Sabbath Morning fills up the sheet ; and, 
after it is folded, the hlank corners are garnished with such 
scraps as the following : — 

The tenant to his landlord hied, 

And told his tale of poverty : — 
" I pardon you," the landlord cried, 

" Your clothes are rent enough, I see." 

Four years later — four years to Nicoll of intense mental 
activity, we find him writing from Dundee to a young 
literary friend, and, after lamenting the venality of the 
newspaper press, saying, " I have lately heen reading the 
Recollections of Coleridge. What a mighty intellect was 
lost in that man for want of a little energy — a little deter- 
mination ! He was ruined, as thousands have been, by the 
accursed aristocracy. I almost cried when I found him 
saying, that instead of completing, or rather beginning, 
his projected great work, he was obliged to write twaddle 
f or , 9 and compose MS. sermons, to support 

* The reader need not be reminded that this is the free and confiden- 
tial letter of one brother to another — of a clever and sanguine lad of 
eighteen, but lately from the country, to a boy two or three years 
younger ; who has, however, so well profited by the advice, that the 
handwriting of the man is excellent, and just as close as it should be. 



26 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

his station in society ! Good God ! that a man with an 
intellect so noble should have been a slave to convention- 
alities. Had he dared to be poor — had he known that 
bread, and cheese, and water could nourish the body as 
well as the choicest viands — that coarse woollens could 
cover it as well as the finest silks — and had he dared to act 
on that knowledge, how little of his time would it have 
taken to have sufficed his wants, and how much leisure 
would he have had for giving shape and utterance to his 
immortal thoughts ! He could not say with Jean Paul, 
' What matters, if God's heaven be within a man's head, 
whether its outside covering be a silken cowl or a greasy 
nightcap?' and through fear of losing caste in this world— 
this speck and point of time merely — he consented to forego 
' his station ' in the world of mind. Oh ! for an hour of 
John Milton to teach such men to c act and comprehend/ " 

This may to many sound like rodomontade, and it, un- 
fortunately for life, argues slender experience of real life ; 
but this much may be said for the young enthusiast : — he 
was living according to his own doctrines, and literally on 
bread, and cheese, and water, " that he might have leisure 
to give shape and utterance to his thoughts." 

It was Nicoll's habit, during the summer, to rise before 
five o'clock, and repair to the North Inch of Perth, where 
he wrote in the open air until seven o'clock, when it was 
time to attend to business. Again, when at nine o'clock 
in the evening his daily labour was over, his studies were 
resumed, and were often carried far into the morning. 
Such rigorous application in a growing lad, but recently 
transferred to a town from the brae-side — where he had 
lived all his days in the open air like a bird — and to con- 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 27 

stant confinement in a shop, could not be without ill effects 
on his health ; though we have heard his mother impute 
the origin of the malady, which ultimately cut him off, to 
some internal injury, or strain of the chest, which he re- 
ceived from thoughtlessly lifting a too heavy load. 

About this time, Nicoll became a member of a debating 
society of young men, the object of which appears to have 
been partly political, and partly literary. Of this society 
his brother says, " Robert's manner, that of a raw country 
boy, was against him ; but his indomitable energy and per- 
severance soon overcame every difficulty, and in a very 
short space of time he was able to speak with great fluency. 
The habit of extemporary speaking which he acquired in 
the Young Men's Debating Society of Perth, gave him that 
confidence in himself which enabled him in a year or twc 
afterwards [in Dundee] successfully to address larger as- 
semblies of more critical listeners. To improve himself in 
composition, besides his ordinary exercises he was in the 
habit of writing short stories, of which he had always a 
few lying by him. One of them, 'II Zingaro/ he sent to 
Johnstone s Magazine ." 

But the history of that most momentous event in the life 
of a young author — the first-published article — may come 
with far more grace from his own pen than from that of 
any other individual. In what a happy flutter of spirits 
must the subjoined letter have been written ! 

" Dear William, — I have great news to tell you ! About 
the beginning of last month I wrote a tale for one of my 
exercises in composition, and as I had bestowed some pains 
upon it, I was loath to lose it. Accordingly, I sent it, 
addressed to Mr. Johnstone, for insertion in Johnstone's 

c 



28 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

Magazine; and, to my surprise, it has been inserted in last 
Number, You will find it in page 106. It is a radical 
story ; for I wished to tell truth in the guise of fiction. 

. . . I have told no person of it but Mr. ; and 

on Wednesday my aunties, M** and C********, who ob- 
served — < Dinna be an author ; they are aye puir/ In this 
world's goods they may be, but they have better riches than 
these. At least, my works will not hinder my riches ; for 
I sit down to write when others go to sleep, or to amuse 
themselves ; and I find myself fitter to do my work after 
half a night's writing than others after half a night's idi- 
otical amusement, or worse debauchery. You must for- 
give my bad writing, for the sake of a bad pen." 

This must have been great news for all in Tulliebeltane. 
But we do not learn with what mixture of fear and hope, 
of pride and mistrust, it was received in his mother's cot- 
tage, notwithstanding the prophetic warning of his prudent 
aunts. One year, nay, a half year later, Robert would 
probably have chosen more congenial confidants. 

The Radical story, which found such honourable and 
unlooked-for acceptance, occupies about one page and a 
half of the Magazine. It is not only characteristic of 
Nicoll's mind at that fervent period, but at all after times. 
It is the tale of a gypsy youth, of fine and aspiring genius, 
who, smitten with love for a beautiful girl, becomes a 
water-carrier in an Italian city, and who, by resolutely 
enduring every kind of privation, and exerting wonderful 
energy, is enabled to become the pupil of an eminent painter, 
and finally acquires great eminence in his art, and obtains 
the hand of the object of his love and his exertions. 

The tale has some foundation either in fact or in popular 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 29 

tradition. It commences in the vein of much of NicolPs 
future writing. "From among the People the greatest 
men of every age have arisen. Those rich in worldly goods 
rarely find time for aught but luxurious enjoyments; while 
among the poor there are always a few who sanctify the 
hours saved from toil by striving to attain intellectual ex- 
cellence. From among those few sometimes arise master- 
spirits, who give a tone, not only to the age in which they 
live, and to their own land, but to future generations, and 
to the whole world. The peculiar greatness of mental 
power is, that it does not blaze up in a corner, and then be- 
come extinct, but enlightens and delights all nations. . . . 
Who can estimate the influence which the life and writings 
of Robert Burns have exerted on our national character ? 
Who can estimate the good effects which the writings of 
Sir Walter Scott — so filled with human sympathies and 
wise examples — may yet exert on the destinies of mankind? 
We know no more heart-elating enjoyment than to peruse 
Benjamin Franklin's narrative of his own life : in which 
he tells of his rise from a runaway printer's boy to be the 
first philosopher of the day ; and one of the founders of an 
empire the freest and happiest the world ever saw. Is the 
influence of all the kings that ever reigned to be for a 
moment compared with the silent mental power possessed 
by Franklin ? . . . . But in our day it is compara- 
tively an easy matter for the so-called lower classes to edu- 
cate themselves. The gates of knowledge — of mental power 
— stand ever open." 

Such is the preamble to II Zingaro, and the first indica- 
tion of the future radical poet and newspaper editor. Nicoll 
was now nineteen ; and his letters and manuscript com- 



SO LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

positions show that, in the previous year, he had made 
rapid advancement, both in the power of thinking, and in 
the art of expressing his thoughts, and even in the lesser 
matters of orthography and grammatical accuracy. 

Either from the effect of the internal crush which he 
had received, or from over-application, perhaps from both 
causes, Robert's health became so much deranged towards 
the close of his apprenticeship, that it was abruptly termi- 
nated, by his kind and indulgent mistress sending him 
home to be nursed by his mother.* At leisure, breathing 
his native air, and wandering among the "Orde Braes," 
he recovered rapidly : and, in the month of September, of 
the same year, he, for the first time, visited Edinburgh, in 
quest of employment. This visit was made at a rather 
memorable period — the time of the " Grey Dinner." After 
giving the history of his private adventures in a letter to 
his father and mother, he thus continues the narrative of 
his visit : — 

" Edinburgh was a sight worth seeing on Monday last. 
The Streets, from Newington, along the South and North 
Bridges, and Prince's Street, were crowded, or rather 
wedged. The whole side of the Calton Hill was paved 
with people. There must have been 40,000 on the line of 
Earl Grey's march. I saw him at the Waterloo Hotel. 
He is a fresh-looking, bald-headed man, with a most de- 
termined curled lip. He is not old-looking. I thought 
the crowd would have shaken his hand off. He is a most 
beautiful speaker. Lord Brougham I saw at the college, 
and he looks far younger than I thought him. .... 

* A younger brother, some years subsequently, succeeded Robert in 
the same establishment. 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 31 

Lord Durham is a handsome man — dark- coloured, and 
clever-looking. .... 

"I paid sixpence to see the place that they had the 
dinner in — [the Grey Pavilion ;] and truly it was more 
like one of the enchanted halls in the Arabian Nights than 
anything else. 

" If I get a situation, I shall write you ; but if not, I 
shall be home on Saturday. Had I been a cloth-merchant, 
[draper] I might have got a dozen of situations. 

" I have visited Mr. Johnstone, who has been remarkably 
kind. I was at my tea with him on Saturday. I saw his 
steam-press going, printing Talis Magazine. It is a strange 
machine. A sheet of paper, of the proper size, is put in, 
and comes out at the other end, and printed on both sides/' 
—Two years afterwards, and Nicoll was himself keeping 
one of those "strange machines ,, in full play, and stirring 
thousands with its productions. 

At this time, he was, on his own earnest request, intro- 
duced to Mr. Robert Chambers, and Mr. Robert Gilfillan ; 
for every one who wrote, and, above all, who wrote verses, 
was then a Magnate in his eyes. By every one that he 
met, he appears to have felt himself treated with kindness 
and liberality. 

He returned home—it will scarcely be too much to say 
— not greatly disappointed in not finding employment. 
His heart was already placed on a vocation very different 
from that to which he had been bred ; and he might speedily 
have found what he did not in fact very anxiously seek. 
The pursuits of literature — to be connected in some way 
with books, and the press, were it but to breathe in the 
atmosphere of knowledge, was his secret and ardent desire. 



32 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

His friends in Edinburgh were, on the other hand, more 
desirous to repress, than to foster, his literary ardour ; and 
anxious that he should stick to his trade, and, without 
abandoning either politics or the Muses, keep them, for the 
present, in the back-ground. But this was not to be. — 
His future vocation was speedily determined ; — and all was 
for the best. 

He had, in fact, been offered a situation of the kind to 
which he had been bred, when, with very slender means, 
the help of his mother, and some friendly aid and encour- 
agement from acquaintances in Perth, he was induced to 
open a Circulating Library in Dundee. A shop was ac- 
cordingly taken in that town, and the establishment was 
arranged on a scale of cheapness in lending out, which 
would seem as extraordinary as were the frugal and self- 
denied habits of the young librarian, were both laid open 
to the world. 

Upon this plan of life Nicoll entered with all the ardour 
and energy belonging to his character. By means of his 
Library, he soon acquired an extensive acquaintance among 
the young mechanics and manufacturers of the place ; and 
this year, 1835, became an important epoch in his life. He 
wrote largely and frequently for the liberal newspapers of 
the town ; he delivered political lectures ; he made speeches ; 
he augmented his stores of knowledge by reading ; he wrote 
poems ; and, finally, he prepared and published his volume 
of Poems and Lyrics. Nicoll was of the order of young 
men of genius, who more require the rein than the spur : 
and his sage Edinburgh friends certainly gave no more 
encouragement to his appearance as an author — which was 
deemed premature, and, consequently, injurious to what 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 33 

they imagined his real powers, when time had been allowed 
for their fair developement — than they had done to his 
change of profession. But a good many persons in his own 
rank of life, chiefly clever young working-men, had sub- 
scribed for the projected work. It was forthwith put to 
press in one of the newspaper -offices of Dundee : and when 
Robert, on coming to Edinburgh to find a publisher, got a 
note of introduction from a friend to Mr. Tait, and found 
that gentleman (although booksellers are not generally, in 
these times, fond of poetical literature) willing to be his 
publisher, he returned home in high spirits. His volume 
shortly afterwards appeared, and was received with great 
kindness by his friends, and with that warm approbation 
by the press which the author modestly considered far 
above its merits. 

We have the authority of his brother for saying, that, 
" while Robert acknowledged that his poems were the 
means of placing him in a situation to attempt something 
better, he regretted that he had published so soon." And, 
in point of fact, though he wrote verses while he was able 
to hold a pencil, he published no more, with the exception 
of one or two pieces at most, which, while he was editor of 
the Leeds Times, appeared in Taitfs Magazine, through the 
intervention of the friend to whom they were sent. 

When Robert had been some time in Dundee, his origi- 
nal want of anything deserving to be called capital, and 
his literary studies and engagements, (which, if quite un- 
productive, yet occupied considerable time,) induced him 
to receive as a partner, a young tradesman who had a little 
money ; while he himself attempted a small periodical 
work which did not succeed. The library business, hardly 



34 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

able to support one, could ill support two ; and, at Whit- 
sunday, 1836, Nicoll made it entirely over to his partner, 
retiring from the concern without any gain, and without 
any obligation : — he had, indeed, lost by it. This concern 
must have occasioned great anxiety to his mother, who had, 
however, made those efforts which only a mother can make 
to assist and support him in it. 

In entering upon the concern, he had come under, and 
also involved his mother in, pecuniary engagements, trifl- 
ing in amount indeed, as the whole sum was under £20, but 
which were to him and her as harassing and depressing as 
hundreds or thousands might have been in different cir- 
cumstances. He had also, shortly after coming to Dundee, 
formed an ardent attachment to a very pretty and amiable 
girl, who eventually became his wife. He had thus every 
motive for endeavouring to establish himself as soon as 
possible in some suitable and permanent occupation. This 
young person, Nicoll' s first and only love, was Miss Alice 
Suter, the only child of a widow, and the niece of the editor 
of one of the newspapers to which Nicoll contributed. She 
naturally shared his anxiety about their future prospects, 
and stimulated him to look for employment elsewhere. 
But his strong-hearted mother was still, as ever, his support 
in trial, and the confidant of all his hopes and fears. 

When he had almost made up his mind to make over 
the business to his partner, and quit Dundee for Edinburgh 
or London, in the hope of finding employment connected 
w T ith the newspaper press, we find him writing to his 
mother ; and the fact of such a letter, as we have to cite, 
being written by a young man in the circumstances of 
Nicoll, is not half so remarkable, as that it was addressed to a 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 35 

woman in the condition of his mother, with the undoubting 
confidence that she fully comprehended and sympathized 
in every sentiment of his heart, and in every aspiration of 
his mind. It is as justly as beautifully said by Mr. Laing 
in his late work, — " We often hear, What country but 
Scotland ever produced a Burns among her peasantry? 
But the next question for the social economist is, What 
country but Scotland ever produced a peasantry for whom 
a Burns could write ? Burns had a public of his own in his 
own station in life, who could feel and appreciate his 
poetry, long before he was known to the upper class of 
Scotch people ; and, in fact, he never was known or appre- 
ciated by the upper class , 9 . It is 

a peculiar feature in the social condition of our lowest 
labouring class in Scotland, that none, perhaps in Europe, 
of the same class, have so few physical, and so many intel- 
lectual wants and gratifications. Luxury, or even comfort 
in diet and lodging is unknown. Oatmeal, milk, potatoes, 
kail, herrings, and rarely salt meat, are the chief food ; a 
wretched, dark, damp, mud-floored hovel the usual kind 
of dwelling ; yet, with these wants and discomforts in their 
physical condition, which is far below that of the same 
class abroad, we never miss a book, perhaps a periodical, 
a sitting in the Kirk, a good suit of clothes for Sunday 

wear The labouring man's 

subscriptions in Scotland to his book-club, his newspaper 
turn, his Bible Society, his Missionary Society, his kirk, or 
minister if he be a Seceder, and his neighbourly aid of the 
distressed, are expenditure upon intellectual and moral 
gratifications of a higher cast than the music-scrapings, 



36 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

singing, dancing, play-going, and novel- reading, of a much 
higher class of persons in Germany." 

The above passage affords the key to a Scottish matron, 
living under the exact circumstances described by Mr. Laing, 
fully appreciating a letter like the following, addressed to 
her by her son : — 

"Dundee, 6th February, 1836. 

"Dear Mother, — I have just received the box with the 
articles,* and your letter. 1 entirely forgot to send you a 
book ; but you may be sure of one next time. I send this 

letter by D. C , and would have sent a book likewise, 

but do not like to trouble him. Enclosed you will find a 
number of letters, which I thought you would like to see. 
Be sure to keep them clean, and return them soon. I shall 
write you again before going to Edinburgh ; and you may 
depend I shall not give up my shop till I have something 
certain to compensate for it. 

" That money of R.'sf hangs like a millstone about my 
neck. If I had it paid I would never borrow again from 
mortal man. But do not mistake me, mother ; I am not 
one of those men who faint and falter in the great battle 
of life. God has given me too strong a heart for that. I 
look upon earth as a place where every man is set to 
struggle, and to work, that he may be made humble and 
pure-hearted, and fit for that better land for which earth 
is a preparation — to which earth is the gate. Cowardly 
is that man who bows before the storm of life — who runs 
not the needful race manfully, and with a cheerful heart. 

* Probably his clean linen, and tbe oaten-bread baked for him in the 
cottage at Tulliebeltane, thirty miles off. 

+ This refers to the few pounds which had been lent him, when he 
opened his library at Dundee. 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 37 

If men would but consider how little of real evil there is 
in all the ills of which they are so much afraid — poverty 
included — there would be more virtue and happiness, and 
less world and mammon-worship on earth than is. I 
think, mother, that to me has been given talent ; and if so, 
that talent was given to make it useful to man. To man 
it cannot be made a source of happiness unless it be culti- 
vated ; and cultivated it cannot be unless I think little of 
[[here some words are obliterated] , and much and well of 
purifying and enlightening the soul. This is my philosophy; 
and its motto is — 

Despair, thy name is written on 
The roll of common men. 

Half the unhappiness of life springs from looking back to 

griefs which are past, and forward with fear to the future. 

That is not my way. I am determined never to bend to 

the storm that is coming, and never to look back on it 

after it has passed. Fear not for me, dear mother ; for I 

feel myself daily growing firmer, and more hopeful in 

spirit. The more I think and reflect — and thinking, instead 

of reading is now my occupation — I feel that, whether I 

be growing richer or not, I am growing a wiser man, 

which is far better. Pain, poverty, and all the other wild 

beasts of life which so affright others, I am so bold as to 

think I could look in the face without shrinking, without 

losing respect for myself, faith in mans high destinies, and 

trust in God. There is a point which it costs much mental 

toil and struggling to gain, but which, when once gained, 

a man can look down from, as a traveller from a lofty 

mountain, on storms raging below, while he is walking in 

sunshine. That I have yet gained this point in life I will 



38 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

not say, but I feel myself daily nearer it. I would write 
long, but have no more time, and must stop short in the 
middle of my letter. We are in the shop much as usual. 
Hoping my father will get better soon, I am, dear mother, 
your son, 

" Robert Nicoll." 

The only regular correspondent of Nicoll at this time 
was the young friend to whom he addressed the remarks 
on the fate of Coleridge that have been cited above. There 
were many points of resemblance in their position, and 
some in their character ; and the friendship struck up with 
the unknown admirer of his poetry, who was himself a 
man of great and original powers of mind and fancy, over- 
flowed in epistles which, in spite of the old high rate of 
postage, proceeded at the brisk pace of twenty-one with a 
first literary friend. Nicoll' s literary friends in Edinburgh 
rarely wrote to him, and never more than the needful, when 
they entertained the hope of forwarding his views, or of 
being of use to him in some way or other ; but here were 
the warm sympathies of youth, and a cordial outpouring 
of soul on both sides. The correspondence is highly char- 
acteristic of both the individuals, who continued cordial 
friends up to the death of Nicoll, though they never chanced 
once to meet. 

A few extracts from this correspondence will elucidate 
Nicoirs state of mind at this, and, indeed, at every future, 
period of his short life. His philosophy, if we may so 
apply the term, — his high feeling of his vocation, — his 
" definite purpose " in all that he wrote, we conceive more 
remarkable, and far more rare than even his attainments 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 39 

as a Scottish poet. We have seen that, from his boyish 
years, it had been his resolution 

To scorn delights, 
And live laborious days ; 

and neither love, politics, nor the fascinations of society 
made him once waver in the resolve. His correspondent 
had been desirous to know if the young poet whose verses 
he admired, was correct in his habits, and steady in his 
character, before he gave him his full friendship ; and he 
made inquiry of a common friend, who informed Nicoll of 
the circumstance. Now, with great gleefulness and cheer- 
fulness of disposition, a keen perception of humour, and 
true relish of fun, there was in Robert not only the most 
perfect purity of mind and life, but, as has been said, a 
lack of frailties and eccentricities somewhat detrimental to 
the personal interest usually taken in the passionate sons 
of song, — who are, perhaps, not the worse liked by their 
wiser, prosaic patrons and friends for being at least a little 
odd and wayward, if not irregular, in their manners and 
habits. 

The inquiry as to his morals, gave him opportunity to 
reply in this strain : — " You are right in thinking that I 
would honour you for being anxious to know whether I 
was * steady ' or not ; and I am happier than I can well 
express to find, that in you I have not only met with a 
man of undoubted genius, but with a man who likewise 
knows what is due to that genius, who knows how to re- 
spect himself, and disdains to sully the light which God 
has kindled in his soul by the unholy and accursed fumes 
of vice and immorality. I fervently hope that the time has 



40 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

for ever gone by when genius was considered an excuse for 
evil — when the man who could appreciate and express the 
beautiful and true, was supposed to be at liberty to scorn 
all truth, and all beauty, mental and moral. Our influence 
on mankind may be small, but it will ever be exerted to 
purify, and better, and enlighten. The time has come — 
the day of human improvement is growing to noon, and 
henceforth men, with free and disenthralled souls, will 
strive to make them, in very truth, ' a temple where a God 
might dwell.' If the men of mind would but join to intel- 
lectual power more single-mindedness and purity of heart, 
— if they would but strive to be morally as well as intel- 
lectually great, there would be fewer complaints against 
mans proneness to mammon-worship. The only legitimate 
power in sublunary things, Mind, would, as it ought — ay, 
and as it will, if men be true to themselves — have its due 
influence and honour. Literary men, too, now begin to see 
the power and glory of their own mission ; and this is 
both an omen and an earnest of much good. Oh ! for a 
man like blind old John Milton to lead the way in moral and 
intellectual improvement to moral and intellectual light 

and glory 

" Of the butterflies who have degraded literature by their 
evil ways, until it has become something almost to be 
scorned at, and who have made one branch of it — namely 
poetry — to be regarded not in the light of a God-given gift 
for blessing and hallowing earth, and man, and nature, but 
as something for the amusement of fools, and the eulogy 
of knaves — of those creatures who lie below contempt, 
were their doings not so mischievous, you need entertain 
no fear " 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 41 

In tenderly ministering to, or endeavouring to brace, 
while he soothed the morbid mind of this friend, for whom 
he had the warmest regard — and who merited his regard, 
in spite of his capricious fits, whether of real or of merely 
pen-and-ink despondency — Nicoll sometimes recurred to his 
own early and real difficulties, and to his continued manful 
struggle with poverty ; if the man may properly be called 
poor, whose clear income was probably not six shillings a- 
week, but who could live upon less. He owned that he 
also had at times felt crushed in hope and spirit ; but now, 
he says, " Time has made my heart firmer, adversity has 
knit me to endurance, and prepared me to meet all fortunes, 
if not smilingly, at least carelessly. You cannot feel thus, 
— but I do. What makes the difference ? I will tell you, 
Charles. I am a younger man than you, but my struggle 
began earlier. From seven years of age to this hour, I 
have been dependent only on my own head and hands for 
everything — for very bread. Long years ago — ay, even 
in childhood — adversity made me think, and feel, and 
suffer ; and, would pride allow me, I could tell the world 
many a deep, deep tragedy enacted in the heart of a poor, 
forgotten, uncared-for boy. Have you ever known those 

Tortures, alone the poor can know, 
The proud alone ean feel ? 

I hope not ; for callousness to the world and its ways is too 
dearly bought by such suffering. I have known it — ay, 
to my heart's core ; and while the breath of life is in my 
body I can never forget. But I thank God, that though 
I felt and suffered, the scathing blast neither blunted my 
perceptions of natural and moral beauty, nor, by withering 



42 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

the affections of my heart, made me a selfish man. Often 
when I look hack I wonder how I hore the burden, — how 
I did not end the evil day at once and for ever. Pride 
saved me then ; and it encourages me now. Is it to be 
borne, that while the selfish, mean-souled, grovelling mul- 
titude toil and win, the true soul and the brave heart shall 
faint and fail % Never. Though disdaining to use the arts 
and subterfuges by which others conquer, the time come3 
for work, and if the man be ready he takes his place where 
he ought. Of myself, and the little I find time to do, truly 
I can say — 

One boon from human being I ne'er had, 
Save life, and the frail flesh- covering 
With which 'tis clad." 

This is the only occasion in which we find Nicoll indulg- 
ing in this vein. And here it might have been, in some 
degree, excited by sympathy with his gloomy friend. His 
natural character was cheerful and hopeful. When a herd- 
boy, or a little assistant- worker in a neighbouring gentle- 
man's garden, he had at times suffered, silently and bitterly, 
the proud man's scorn ; and probably he felt as indignity 
treatment of which a boy of less sensibility might have 
thought nothing. In his beautiful poem — " Youth's 
Dreams " — he alludes to these early feelings. We have 
heard a friend impute his radicalism, or hostility to the 
aristocracy, to remembrance of the harsh and ignominious 
treatment which he had received from his employers when 
a boy — a child rather — engaged in rustic labour. Besides 
the pride and sensibility with which Nature had largely 
endowed Nicoll, it is also to be kept in mind, that he belonged 
to a family which, in the same neighbourhood where they 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 43 

dwelt in poverty, had seen better days. His Radicalism, 
however, rested on a broader foundation, though the sense 
of social injustice may have been thus first awakened. 
No man ever stood more proudly and firmly by his Order 
than Robert NicolL 

Upon another occasion, when his correspondent — who was 
very apt to despond, or with whom sentimental despondency 
was, perhaps, first an affectation, and then a habit, a not 
uncommon case among self-educated, clever men — had 
probably been complaining of his daily drudgery, one of 
the most decided marks of an 1- regulated mind, so long as 
men, however highly gifted, while in this world, 

" Maun do something for tbeir bread ; ^ ■ 

Robert Nicoll, who never gave way to this querulous temper^ 
who was, at all times, a hard, unflinching labourer, and 
who had, moreover, a high idea of his vocation, thus re- 
plied : — " What you say of newspaper- writing is true — true 
as truth itself ; but you forget one part. It would, indeed, 
be hangman's work to write articles one day to be forgotten 
to-morrow, if this were all ; but you forget the comfort — ■ 
the repayment. If one prejudice is overthrown— -one error 
rendered untenable ; if but one step in advance be the con- 
sequence of your articles and mine — the consequences of 
the labour of all true men — are we not deeply repaid ? 
Whenever I feel despondency creeping upon me — whenever 
the thought rises in my mind that I am wasting the 6 two 
talents ' on the passing instead of the durable, I think of 
the glorious mission which all have, who struggle for truth 
and the right cause ; and then I can say — ' What am I 
that I should repine ; am not I an instrument, however 

B 



44 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

unworthy, in the great work of human redemption ?— 

Would to God, dear , we had a Press totally free ; 

for then, men would dare to speak the truth, not only in 

politics, hut in literature Is truth never to 

have fair play in the fields of literature, where all should 
be her own % " 

Nicoll's fits of despondency, moods to which all men are 
liable, whether poetical or prosaic, dull or bright, were rare 
and short ; and though subject to attacks of ill health, 
often proceeding from over exertion and mental excitement, 
and long without encouraging or fixed prospects of any 
kind, he never really abated of heart or hope. 

When we have cited an introductory passage of Nicoll's 
first letter to his young friend, we shall have done more to 
place the real man before the reader, by giving his own 
confession of his faith, than could be accomplished by long 
pages of description or panegyric. He says : — 

" Amid all this world's woe, and sorrow, and evil, great 
is my faith in human goodness and truth ; and an entire 
love of humanity is my religion. Whether I am worthy 
of becoming the object of such a friendship as I would 
wish to inspire, it becomes not me to say : but this much I 
may hazard, that in my short course through life — for as 
yet one-and-twenty is the sum of my years — I have never 
feared an enemy, nor failed a friend ; and I live in the hope 
that I never shall. For the rest, I have written my heart 
in my poems ; and rude, and unfinished, and hasty as they 
are, it can be read there. Your sentiments on literature — 
the literature of the present day, are mine. I have long 
felt the falsehood, or rather the want of truth, which per- 
vades it ; and save when, like Falstaff, seduced by * evil 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 45 

company,' I have been a worshipper in Nature's Temple, 

and intend to be so But I must tell you 

what sort of an animal bears the name of Robert Nicoll. 
Don't be alarmed ; I mean not to c take my own" life f just 
now. I was born in a rural parish of the Scottish low- 
lands :" — And he here repeats the story of his father's bank- 
ruptcy, and the consequent hardships and destitution of the 
family, continuing — " I commenced 6 hard work ■ at eight 
years of age ; and from that day to this I have struggled 
onward through every phase of rural life, gathering know- 
ledge as I best could. Here I am, then, at twenty-one, 
drunk with the poetry of life — though my own lot has 
been something of the hardest ; having poured from a full 
heart a few rough, rude lilts, and living in the hope of 
writing more and better. A Radical in all things, I am 
entering into literary life, ready and willing to take what 
fortune may send, — 

i For, gude he tliankit, I can plough/ 

I do not rate my published volume too highly, for I know 
its defects ; but I think that by keeping to Nature — to 
what Wordsworth has called the ' great sympathies ' — I 
shall yet do better. If I do not, it shall not be for want 
of close, strict, untiring, perseverance, — or single-minded 
devotion to literature." 

Having, in the spring of 1836, made up his mind to try 
his fortunes in London, Robert wrote to his friends in 
Edinburgh for such letters of introduction as they could, 
with propriety, give him. This scheme appeared so 
hazardous and hopeless to those the most deeply interested 
in his wellbeing, those who had ever regretted his early 



46 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

abandonment of his own business, and exclusive devotion 
to literature, that Mr. Tait kindly offered him some tem- 
porary employment in his warehouse, until something 
better should occur. But he tells it best himself to his 
constant correspondent : — 

" Edinburgh, Parkside, Will June, 1836. 

" The last time I wrote, I expected to have by this time 
been with you at Nottingham. But when I came to Edin- 
burgh, on my way to Hull, I found Tait and all my other 
friends decidedly against my going to London without some 
certain employment before me. At last, to keep me here, 
Tait offered me some employment in the meantime, until I 
can get an editorship of some newspaper, which, I have no 
doubt, will be shortly. ...... The moment I 

get a newspaper, I mean to take a fortnight of leave of 

absence and bend my way to N . Perhaps staying here 

was the best way after all. I have present employment 
at least ; and my prospects of succeeding shortly are good ; 
while London was all chance — sink or swim, succeed or 
fail. I wish the world were at the devil altogether; 'tis 
nought but toil and trouble, — all weariness to the flesh, and 
double weariness to the spirit. Nevertheless, it would be 
cowardly not to fight our hour; and we must, therefore, do 
our best — till the tale be told — the song ended — the bond 
sealed — the game, which men call life, played : so be it." 

In the same letter occurs the following passage, drawn 
forth by his cordial correspondent having made him the 
confidant of an attachment which ended in matrimony, 
though some time later than Nicoll's own marriage : — 

" The sentence I liked best in your last letter was that 



LIFE OP ROBERT NICOLL. 47 

which closed it ; and I liked it, not because it contained 
your approbation of something of mine, but because it told 
me you had found a woman to love, and to be loved by. You 
must be happy. I ask not, I care not, if she be beautiful, ac- 
complished, or wealthy — for this I care not ; but I know that 
she must have a noble heart, or had never loved her/' 

He had not yet confided the secret of his own engagement 
to any one beyond his immediate family circle. 

During the few months of this season that Nicoll lived 
in Edinburgh, he became acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. 
Howitt, who were that summer travelling in Scotland ; 
and he spent a good deal of his leisure time at Laverock 
Bank, where his last days were too soon to be spent. Many 
little anecdotes of him at this and other times dwell on the 
memory of his Edinburgh friends, though they may not 
have the same interest for the public. To the most observant 
of these friends, to woman's eyes, his state of health even 
at this period appeared very far from being satisfactory, 
though he made no complaint whatever, and probably had 
no feeling or warning of approaching danger. 

His attachment in Dundee, and his extreme anxiety to 
relieve his mother from the small pecuniary involvements, 
(great to her,) which she had incurred in order to enable 
him to establish his library, rendered him exceedingly de- 
sirous to find the employment for which his friends con- 
ceived him, with all his early disadvantages, at least as well 
qualified as many who filled similar situations. And those 
whose advice had kept him in Edinburgh, were as happy 
as himself, when, by the kind intervention of Mr. Tait, he 
procured the situation of editor of the Leeds Times, with 
even the comparatively narrow salary of .£100 a-year. He 



48 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

made a short farewell visit to his mother, and to his be- 
trothed in Dundee ; and returning to Edinburgh, took leave 
of his friends there, and set out for Leeds, in high spirits, — 
Mr. Tait taking due care of the respectability of his outer 
man, which Robert considered little more than do the lilies 
of the field. His mind was instantly fired and absorbed 
by the duties of his new calling, and by the realization of 
some of his soaring hopes of " making the world better 
yet." He had had considerable experience, while in Dundee, 
both in writing for newspapers, and in addressing Radical 
audiences ; and he possesse d the eminent qualification of 
understanding, and keenly sympathizing in all the feelings 
and objects of the masses. What was called the " faltering 
policy " of the Whigs, had, about this time, gone far to 
alienate the Reformers of the working-class; and, accord- 
ingly, with the Whigs the young Radical editor kept no 
terms ; nor could he, in the case of their organs — though 
his natural manners were mild and conciliatory — be made 
to comprehend the ordinary conventionalities of party war- 
fare, or the courtesies of rival editorship. He would stoop 
to nothing but the truth, and the whole truth, and nothing 
hut the truth. His friends in Edinburgh, who, probably 
on very ample grounds, considered themselves sufficiently 
Liberal, and sufficiently stanch, were even somewhat 
scandalized by his unmeasured and unsparing attacks on 
the ministerial paper of Leeds, ( The Leeds Mercury^) and 
the politics of its respectable conductor. 

So perfectly was Nicoll adapted to the wants of the 
crisis, and with so much enthusiasm and energy did he 
devote himself to his harassing and multifarious duties, 
that in a few weeks after his arrival in Leeds, the circu- 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 49 

lation of the The Leeds Times began to rise, and continued 
to increase with unprecedented rapidity. He had gone to 
Leeds in August ; and in October he wrote to his Laverock 
Bank friends, that he had had a severe cold. He was, in 
return, advised to get lodgings out of the town if possible, 
and to be careful against exposure to cold. His habitual 
temperance, or rather abstemiousness, was favourable to 
his health at this time ; although, on the other hand, he 
must have lived in an almost constant fever of mental ex- 
citement from one cause or another, from the period that 
he went to Leeds, until the hour that he left it. The suc- 
cess of the newspaper gave him very great pleasure, for 
his heart was in every word that he said in it ; and he had 
himself the fullest faith in the truths and opinions that he 
was diffusing. 

After he had been for some time in Leeds, we find him writ- 
ing in high spirits to his brother William, who had, before 
.this period, been apprenticed to a cloth-merchant in Perth : — ■ 
" You will see I am speaking boldly out, and the people 
here like it ; and the proprietor of The Leeds Times is aware 
that it is to my exertions he owes the wonderful success of 
the paper. We are near 3000, and increasing at the rate 
of 200 a~week We are beating both 

Whigs and Tories in Yorkshire rarely « 

I am engaged on a long poem just now, which will be by 
far the best thing I have ever written. It is founded on 
the story of Arnold of Bresica, which you will find in 

Gibbon about the year 1150. Read it. You will see what 
a glorious subject it is. — Was not yon a glorious dinner at 

Halifax % It made the souls of the aristocracy quake. . 
. . The Howitts, William and Mary, are living in 



50 LIFE OF ROBERT * T ICOLL. 

London, and was at their house with a great company 

of literary people, among whom the conversation fell on 
myself. After praising my poetry as first-rate, what think 
you was the compliment Mary Howitt paid me? — why, 
that I had ' the finest eyes' (ye gods and little fishes !) she 
had ever seen ! Now, she has seen the eyes of Southey, 
Moore, Campbell, Wordsworth ; in short, she has seen the 
eyes of all the prosers and poets of the age — and mine the 
finest ! But as Solomon says — ' all is vanity/ Cunning 
chap that Solomon. .... 

" P.S. — I like Hobson very much. He never sees the 
paper till it be printed. I mean to have a higher salary 
though. The Perth Chronicle won't do unless they speak 
up. What's the use of mumbling % " 

To his literary friend and correspondent, who had also 
about this time obtained the editorship of a newspaper, he 
writes towards the end of the year : 

" I see you are beginning to tell me that I now see the 
truth of what you told me of the world's unworthiness ; 
but stop a little. I am not sad as yet, though a little 
tried in spirit at being as it were bound to the wheel, and 
hindered in a great degree from those pursuits which I 
love so well ; and with which I had hoped to have entwined 
my name. But if I am hindered from feeling the soul of 
poetry amid woods and fields, I yet trust I am struggling 
for something worth prizing, — something of which I am 
not ashamed, and need not be. If there be aught on earth 
worthy of aspiring to, it is the lot of him who is enabled 
to do something for his miserable and suffering fellow-men ; 
and this you and I will try to do at least. Let us not 
complain. 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 51 

" Your first number is excellent. You are sure of suc- 
cess ; but a word in your ear : give fewer extracts from 
the papers, and more news. You will find this advice 

worth attending to You will get The 

Times regularly. It is succeeding gloriously. The circu- 
lation is now at 3000 a-week, and it is still rising rapidly. 
Don't I give them the pure doctrine? The truth makes 
people stare, and buy likewise : so 'tis both pleasant and 
profitable. 

" How do you get on with Tait ? Did he not pay me a 
compliment last month, by dubbing me the Ultra-Radical, 
and writing up the Mongrel Tory-Whig Mercury* as the 
Radical? However, it is all fair ; but had The Times been 
in need of a pufF, it would have been darned. 

" How is E ? I trust well and happy. And now for 

a secret. I am going down to Dundee next week to be 
married ! Ye gods and little fishes !" 

Even those who condemned the rashness and violence of 
NicolFs opinions, and his indecorous attacks on the Whig 
party, (for it was ever the especial object of his hostility,) 
must have given him full credit for sincerity. And truly 
in the alleged peccant state of the public press, it is re- 
freshing to peruse such an extract as the following, from 
the confidential correspondence of two very clever young 
provincial editors. The case was this : — 

His friend had been engaged to conduct a Whig or Minis- 
terial newspaper, started in an agricultural English county 
" to serve the interest." The Radical editor was cautioned 
by his constituents not to be rash, and to " enlighten and 

* The Leeds Mercury. 



52 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

elevate the population gradually ;** in short, to serve the 
Whig party, and nothing more. He rehelled against the 
proprietors at a very early period of his engagement, and 
threw up his situation, though with no brilliant prospect 
elsewhere — indeed with no prospect whatever. On this 
occasion, Nicoll, a warm sympathizer, writes him, — " You 
have done right. Whatever may be the consequences, you 
ought not to have submitted for an hour. There are always 
plenty of slavish souls in the world without breaking into 
the harness such a spirit as yours. Had you asked me for 
my advice, I would have bidden you do as you have done. 
The brutes among whom you were placed would soon have 
broken your spirit, or, by constant iteration, have swayed 
you from the right. Keep up your spirits. You are 
higher at this moment in my estimation, in your own, and 
in that of every honest man, than ever you were before. I 
trust it is not in the power of disappointment and vexation 
to bend such a soul as yours. Tait's advice was just such 
as I would have expected from him — honest as honesty 
itself. You must never again accept a paper but in a 
manufacturing town, where you can tell the truth without 
fear or favour ; and that you will not be long in finding a 
paper suitable to you I am certain. You are now known, 
and I defy the world to keep down one like you." After 
other ardent expressions of sympathy, and some matters 
of advice and detail, Nicoll sends this message to the young 
lady to whom his friend was engaged, and who might be 
presumed deeply disappointed at seeing her lover thrown 
out of employment, and their mutual hopes again deferred 

to an indefinite period. — " Tell E from me to estimate, 

as she ought, the nobility and determination of the man 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 53 

who dared to act as you have done.- — Prudent men 

will say that you are hasty. But you have done right, 
whatever may be the consequences." 

For the encouragement of young editors to maintain their 
integrity, and persevere in the honest course, it should be 
told, that the individual in question almost immediately 
obtained a better appointment. 

Towards the middle of December, 1836, Nicoll stole a few 
days from his incessant toils, and came down to Dundee 
to be married. His father and mother met him there ; 
and, without loss of time, he returned to Leeds, with his 
bride. Her mother, who thenceforward formed a member 
of his household, soon followed. Their small establishment 
was placed upon the most prudent and economical founda- 
tion ; and while any measure of health continued to be 
spared to him, his home was, in all respects, as happy as 
any one in which young and pure affection ever found a 
sanctuary. His wife, younger than himself by a year or 
two, possessed considerable personal beauty, and sweet and 
gentle manners ; but, above all, unbounded admiration for 
the talents of her husband. Her health was, like his own, 
delicate, and her original constitution apparently much 
more fragile. Their elder and wiser friends might, for this 
and other prudential reasons, have fancied their union 
premature ; but this also was probably for the best. In 
his brief career, poor Nicoll tasted largely of all the higher 
enjoyments of life, — 

Of all the pleasures of the heart, 
The lover and the friend. 

Though Mrs. Nicoll must, in the first period of their 



54 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

married life, have appeared likely to precede him to the 
grave, she survived him for a considerable period, before fall- 
ing a victim to the same fatal malady that carried him off. 

During the spring of 1837, Nicoll, in letters addressed to 
his young friend, frequently alludes to the happiness of his 
humble home. Between it and his office duties, between 
politics and poetry, his time was divided and very fully 
occupied. His habits and opportunities had never at any 
time led him into what is called society ; and in a letter to 
Edinburgh, after he had been several months in Leeds, he 
mentions that he had no acquaintances, and had never once 
dined out of his own lodgings. 

His professional duties were of themselves incessant and 
harassing. The Leeds Times is a paper of large size ; and 
in reporting, condensing news, writing a great deal for every 
number of the print, and maintaining a wide correspondence 
with the working-men, reformers in different parts of the 
country, he had no assistant. Yet amidst these engage- 
ments, poetry was not wholly forgotten. The numerous 
additions to the original edition of his Poems and Lyrics, 
since published, were mostly written in Leeds, in the au- 
tumn of 1836, and in the early part of 1837 ; and, as evi- 
dence of haste, they were all written in pencil. 

In the spring of 1837, to increase his salary, which was 
but slender remuneration for his labours, Nicoll was induced 
to write the leading article for a paper just then started in 
Sheffield. This, taken altogether, was dreadful overtasking 
even for a man in full health. The proprietors of that 
paper still owe Nicoll' s family the reward of labours, which, 
with his rapidly declining strength, must have been far too 
severe. But his spirit was unfaltering ; and his courage, 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 55 

his fortitude, and power of endurance, long held out against 
every difficulty. All this while his friends in Edinburgh 
and in Perthshire had no reason to be apprehensive on 
his account. When he did write, which was seldom, it 
was in high spirits at the success of the paper under his 
management, and his own prospects. He had lately been 
very happily and suitably married ; and as a brief season 
of economy was sufficient to retrieve whatever might have 
been deemed imprudent in that step, Robert's well- wishers? 
who knew nothing of his failing health, had for him every- 
thing to hope, and nothing to fear. 

The spring of 1837 proved cold and ungenial, and Nicoll 
felt its ill influence ; but there were deeper causes at work 
than weather and season. He had long carried in his breast 
the seeds of disease, which, under other circumstances, 
might have been overcome, or have been kept dormant, but 
which many causes now contributed to develops 

The finishing blow to his health, was given by the gene- 
ral election in the summer of the same year, when the town 
of Leeds was contested by Sir William Molesworth, in op- 
position to Sir John Beckett. Into this contest Nicoll 
naturally threw himself with his whole heart and soul. 
As an enthusiastic Radical, as the Editor of a liberal print, 
as a man now looked up to by a considerable portion of the 
ten-pound electors, and all the intelligent non-electors, he 
was trebly pledged to this cause ; and those who have con- 
templated his character, even as it is faintly indicated in 
this sketch, may imagine the intensity and ardour with 
which, on this occasion, he exerted himself. After a very 
severe struggle, the Liberal cause triumphed in Leeds ; but 
the contest left poor Mcoll in such a state of exhaustion 



56 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

that his wife afterwards said — and we can well helieve it — 
that if Sir William Moles worth, had failed, Robert would 
have died on the instant. He was destined to linger on for 
a few more suffering months. 

By this time it was the month of August ; and NicolPs 
illness had lasted so long, and the symptoms had become 
so urgent, that his wife and her mother felt it their duty 
to apprize his parents of the delicate state of his health. 
They accordingly wrote to Tulliebeltane. He had, how- 
ever, been so averse to any communication being made that 
might alarm his mother, that she was warned not to tell 
whence the painful information had reached her ; but to 
say, if he put any question, that a friend, who had seen 
him in Leeds, had informed her of his illness. This will 
explain the commencement of the following letter, which 
is in reply to his mother's letter of anxious inquiry. It is 
besides the last letter he ever wrote to her : — 

"Leeds, Wednesday, 13th Sept., 1837. 

" My own dear Mother, — This morning I received your 
letter. The 'kind' friend who was so particularly kind 
as to alarm you all out of your senses, need not come to 
my house again. Before, I did not write you all about my 
illness, because I did not wish to make you uneasy ; but 
it shall be no longer so. I will tell you how it began — 
when it began — its progress — its present state." 

Having described his case at length, and given the opin- 
ions of the medical men, and those of his wife and his 
mother-in-law, in the manner most likely to soothe the 
fears of his mother, he, at the same time, owns that he is 
very weak — that the quantity of medicine he was taking 
deprived him of appetite ; and that he had made up his mind 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 57 

to be an invalid through the winter, and meant, if possible, 
to obtain a respite of a few weeks from labour. He then 
proceeds to another subject, probably in answer to some 
message from his venerable and pious grandfather : — "My 
love to aunt and grandfather : tell both that I do not know 
how I could better serve my God than by serving my 
fellow-men. He gave me a mission, and I trust I have 
done my best to fulfil it. As for you, dear mother, dear 
father, I bid you be of good cheer ; I shall recover yet, 
though it will take a while. And if I do not, I trust I am 
prepared calmly to meet the worst. My life has not yet 
been a long one, but I have borne much sickness — sickness 
such as opens the grave before men's eyes, and leads them 
to think of death ; and I trust I have not borne this, and 
suffered, and thought, in vain. 

" I have told you the whole truth— every word of it ; 
and you will see how exaggerated the account you have 
received must have been. I am sorry for Willie's illness. 
My love to him — to my own dear father — to Joe, Charlotte, 

and Charlie We have had much rain 

here. I hope the harvest is progressing fast. I was dream- 
ing last night about grandfather. I thought he and I were 
making hay on the green. My love to grandfather, — tell 
him not to be alarmed. Write soon, and tell Willie to 
write. How we long for letters from ' home/ " 

About the time that this letter was written, a Delegate 
from the Working-Men's Association of London visited 
Leeds, on some political mission, and saw the now-famed 
Editor of The Leeds Times, whom he found apparently in 
the last stage of a decline. On his return to London, this 
Delegate apprized Robert's correspondent, so often alluded 



58 LIFE OP ROBERT NICOLL. 

to ; and that kind friend, besides writing immediately, 
entreating Nicoll to give himself a season of repose, and to 
come up to him with his wife, also wrote to Mr. Tait, to 
inform him of the full extent of NicolPs danger. This 
roundabout intelligence, which was the first intimation 
of his serious illness they had received, greatly alarmed 
his Edinburgh friends ; and the step was instantly taken, 
to which he so affectionately, and with an excess of grateful 
feeling, refers in the subjoined letter to his brother William. 
For some time previous to this he had been unable to drag 
himself even to the printing-office ; and his various weary 
and heavy tasks had been gone through at his own dwelling. 
From anything that appears, the proprietors of the news- 
paper knew much less about him than strangers at a dis- 
tance. 

One generous friend * whom he had found in Leeds, had, 
at this time, a lodging in Knaresborough ; and he induced 
Robert and Mrs. Nicoll to go to that place for a fortnight, for 
relaxation and change of air. When there, he rode about 
on a donkey, seeming to enjoy at least the comparative ease 
and leisure of his position ; and his young and anxious wife 
even flattered herself that he was getting better. His own 
letters, his own feelings, were a surer index to the truth. 

Knaresborough, 10^ October, 1837. 

" My own dear kind Brother, — Both your letters have 

been received, and I would have answered them long ago, 

had I been able. I came to this place, which is near 

Harrowgate, and eighteen miles from Leeds, about a fort- 



* This true friend, whose name, when this sketch was originally writ- 
ten, had escaped our memory, was Mr. Whitehead. 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 59 

night ago ; but I feel very little better for the change. 
My bowels are better ; but I am miserably weak, and can 
eat little. My arm is as thin as that of a child a month 
old. Yet it is strange that, with all this illness and weak- 
ness, I feel as it w^ere no pain. My breast, cough, and all 
have not been so well for years. I feel no sickness, but as 
sound and wholesome as ever I did. The length of time 
I have been ill and my weakness alone frighten me ; but 
whether I am to die or live, is in a wiser hand. I have 
been so long ill I grow peevish and discontented sometimes ; 
but on the whole I keep up my spirits wonderfully. Alice 
bears up, and hopes for the best, as she ought to do. Oh, 
Willie! I wish I had you here for one day, — so much, 
much I have to say about them all, in case it should end 
for the worst. It may not, — but we should be prepared. 
I go home to Leeds again on Friday. 

" Thank you for your kind dear letter ; it brought sun- 
shine to my sick weariness. I cried over it like a child. 
. . . , Sickness has its pains, but it has likewise its 

pleasures. From , and others, I have received such 

kind, kind letters ; and the London Working-Men's Asso- 
ciation, to whom I am known but by my efforts in the 
cause, have written me a letter of condolence filled with 
the kindest hopes and wishes. 

"I have just received another letter from Tail;, which 
made me weep with joy, and which will have the same 
effect upon you. He bids me send to him for money, if I 
need it ; and urges me to leave Leeds and the paper in- 
stantly, and come to Edinburgh, where there is a house 
ready for me ; and there to live, and attend to nothing but 
my health, till I get better. He urges me to this with a 



GO LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

father's kindness ; and bids me feel neither care nor anxiety 

on any account And so delicately, too, 

he offers and urges all this. How can I ever repay this 
man and the Johnstones for such kindness. — Should I do 

this ? I know not. You admire my articles : they are 

written almost in torment. 

" You will go to Tulliebeltane on Sunday, and read this 
letter to them. Tell them all this. I wish my mother to 
come here immediately to consult with her. I wish to see 
her. I think a sight of her would cure me. I am sure a 
breath of Scottish air would. Whenever I get well I could 
get a dozen editorships in a week, for I have now a name 
and a reputation. 

" My mother must come immediately. Yet I feel regret 
at leaving the paper, even for a season. Think on all that 
you, and I, and millions more have suffered by the system 
I live to war against ; and then you will join with me in 
thinking every hour misspent which is not devoted to the 
good work. 

" Dear, dear Willie, give my love to them all, — to my 
parents — to Joe — to Maggie — to Charlie — to aunt — to 
grandfather. Write, to say when my mother comes. 
Write often, often, and never mind postage. I have filled 
my paper, and have, not said half of what I wished. . . 
. . . I can do nothing till I see my mother. I cannot 
find words to say how I feel Tait's kindness. Write soon. 
I have much more to say, but I am tired writing. This 
is the most beautiful country you ever saw ; but I have no 
heart to enjoy it. — God bless you, 

* Robert Nicoll." 

The only hope which Nicoll's friends in Edinburgh could 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 61 

now entertain, was placed in at once withdrawing him from 
his professional duties, and their attendant mental harass- 
ments, and in obtaining the best medical advice. 

Though Nicoll left Leeds without leaving one penny of 
debt there, it could not be supposed that, when he had been 
little more than one year in his situation, and that the year 
of his marriage, he could have saved anything. His little 
debt to his mother, or rather her obligations for him, still 
hung most painfully upon his mind* He had fondly hoped, 
instead of burthening, to be able to aid her and the family ; 
and, in the meanwhile, he had involved her. The first look 
of his generous and devoted mother, who at once went up 
to him to Leeds,* must have banished these distressing feel- 
ings. There was nothing to be thought of save restoring 
him to health, if that were still possible ; and, in every 
event, of ministering to his comfort and solace. 



* There is much false and injurious delicacy among all the ranks of 
British society, in speaking of pecuniary matters ; yet it would almost be 
a sin against the finer humanities, if this absurd feeling were to lead to 
the suppression of an anecdote of Nicoll's mother, which, besides being 
characteristic of the woman, illustrates the noble character of the cottage- 
matrons of Scotland, The Nicolls, it need not be told, were a very poor 
family ; the mother nobly struggling to educate her children ; and, by 
this means, to raise their condition to the level from whence misfortune 
alone had driven them. Mrs. Nicoll had, by this time, acquired some 
little property, solely by her own exertions and industry ; but she had 
no money to spare to defray the necessary expenses of a journey to Leeds, 
where her son lay, as she must have feared, dying, and languishing to 
see her. When a friend afterwards inquired how she had been able to 
defray this expense, as Robert was in no condition to assist her even 

to this extent, her blunt and noble reply was, — " Indeed, Mr. , I 

shore for the siller." Her wages as a reaper, her " harvest fee," was 
the only means by which she could honestly and independently fulnl 
her beloved son's dying wish, and accomplish the yearning desire of her 
own heart. It would indeed be a sin against whatever gives Scotland 
her proudest distinction among the nations, to suppress this anecdote of 
Robert Nicoll, and his Mother. It reveals things to which Wealth and 
Grandeur may in reverence bow their heads. 



62 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

Nicoll now became impatient to reach Scotland ; and lie 
took leave of his friends, the Reformers of the West-Riding, 
in a short address, which the deep sincerity of his heart, 
and the solemn circumstances under which it was written, 
rendered doubly emphatic. It may be given as a specimen 
of his prose style : — 

" TO THE RADICALS OF THE WEST-RIDISG. 

" Brethren ! — 111 health compels me to leave your locality, 
where I have laboured earnestly and sincerely, and I trust not 
altogether without effect, in the holy work of human regenera- 
tion. I go to try the effect of my native air, as a last chance for 
life; and, after the last number, I am not responsible for anything 
which may appear in The Leeds Times, having ceased to be Editor 
of that paper from that date. 

" I could not leave you without saying this much, without bid- 
ding you, one and all, farewell, at least for a season. If I am 
spared, you may yet hear of me as a Soldier of the People's side: 
if not, thank God ! there are millions of honest and noble men 
ready to help in the great work. Your cause emphatically is 

The holiest cause that pen or sword 
Of mortal ever lost or gained. 

And that you may fight in that cause in an earnest, truthful, 
manly spirit, is the earnest prayer of one who never yet despaired 
of the ultimate triumph of truth. 

u Robert Nicoll." 

The fervent hope which the dying young poet thus ex- 
pressed, is almost exalted to prophecy. 

Nicoll left Leeds, accompanied by his wife, his mother, 
and his mother-in-law, to proceed by the steamer from 
Hull to Leith. It is an interesting fact, that, on that morn- 
ing when he was seated in the railway carriage, to proceed 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 63 

from Leeds to Selby, on his homeward journey, pale, worn, 
and exhausted, but with the remains of a handsome and 
prepossessing countenance, he was met for the first and 
last time by Ebenezer Elliott, who had warmly and 
generously appreciated his dawning genius, and foretold 
his future eminence. Mr. Elliott was, at this time, coming 
to Leeds to deliver a Lecture on Poetry, at the request of 
some Young Men's Association of the place, and wsls quite 
unprepared to see the spectre of the young Scottish poet, 
who had returned his admiration with tenfold fervour. The 
only poetry we have ever heard Nicoll recite and dwell 
upon, was Elliott's. Mr. Elliott was naturally much more 
affected by this hasty passing interview, this exchange of 
looks between the Dead and the Living, than was poor 
Nicoll, already overcome with the pain and languor attend- 
ing his removal. 

He arrived in Leith towards the end of October, and 
came at once to Mr. Johnstone's house at Laverock Bank, 
the family being then in Edinburgh. He was immediately 
visited by Dr. Andrew Combe, in whose skill his friends 
placed the utmost reliance, and even considerable hope. 
The Doctor kindly and generously continued his gratuitous 
visits from time to time ; and his nephew, Dr. James Cox, 
became Nicoll's regular medical attendant. If attentive 
neighbours, skilful physicians, kind friends, and the most 
tender and devoted care of his own family, could have saved 
him, Robert Nicoll would have been restored. Their affec- 
tion, at least, smoothed his way to an early grave. For 
some weeks he seemed to rally ; and the most threatening 
symptoms of his disease were temporarily checked. If the 
winter could only be got through, it was now fondly hoped 



64 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

that he might still struggle on ; and in this hope his mother 
returned to the home from which she could ill be spared, 
to her family and her little traffic ; and his sister — " The 
o?iIj/ sister " of his poetry, and his brother William shortly 
afterwards came to see him. 

There was one friend to whom it was imagined that he 
wished, at this time, to intrust his MS. poems, and the care 
cf that reputation so dear even to the dying poet, but the 
subject was sedulously avoided in the dread of causing ex- 
citement ; for, unlike the majority of cases of consumption, 
Nicoll's case was attended by considerable nervous irrita- 
bility. In the meanwhile, Mr. Tait had informed Sir 
William Molesworth of the condition of the editor of The 
Leeds Times; of his destitution, and the very faint hope 
that was entertained of his recovery. Sir William at once 
sent him an order for fifty pounds, accompanied by a letter, 
remarkable for delicacy and kindness. 

Nicoll did not long outlive the receipt of this timely sup- 
ply, which he received in the same spirit in which it was 
sent. Early in December the worst symptoms of his dis- 
order returned in an aggravated form ; and his medical 
advisers, who had never been sanguine, gave up all hope. 
His parents were immediately written to ; for up to this 
time, his father, a hard-working man, well advanced in 
years, had not been able to visit him. Instantly on receipt 
of the letter, and at nightfall on a December day, they left 
their cottage at Tulliebeltane, and, walking all night, 
reached Laverock Bank, a distance of fifty miles, on the 
afternoon of the following day, and but a few hours before 
their early-called and gifted son, in whom they must have 
placed so much of mingled pride and hope, breathed his 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 65 

last breath. It is the poor only — it is those who are called 
upon to suffer and to sacrifice for each other, who have the 
high privilege of knowing to the full extent, how divine a 
thing is family affection. 

Robert Nicoll died in his twenty-fourth year, sincerely 
lamented by those who knew him best. His remains were 
followed to the church-yard of North Leith by a numerous 
and respectable assemblage, consisting chiefly of gentlemen 
connected with the press in Edinburgh. Those editors of 
liberal newspapers, in Scotland and England, to whom 
Nicoll' s character and talents were known, bore warm tes- 
timony to his abilities, and his labours in the cause of 
Reform. Nor did his memory lack the tribute, dear to the 
bard, of contemporary verse. 

In stature, Nicoll was above the middle height ; though 
a slight stoop made him appear less tall than he really was. 
His person, though, at the age of twenty-three, not robust, 
gave no indication of constitutional delicacy. His features 
were all good ; and the habitual expression of his counte- 
nance was pleasing ; generally thoughtful, but readily 
kindling and brightening into the highest glee, accompanied 
by a merry laugh. The eyes to which he playfully alludes 
in one of the above letters, were of that intense, deep blue 
which, to a casual observer, often looks like black ; and 
were quiet, animated, or glowing, according to the varying 
mood of the moment. He had the warm-coloured, dark- 
brown hair, and sanguine complexion, which are found 
with such eyes. His manners and habits were in nowise 
peculiar, — simple, quiet, unpretending, and manly. He 
would probably have been called careless in his dress ; 
though not so much as to excite notice. He was liable to 



C6 LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 

little fits of absence or embarrassment ; but this was pro- 
bably owing to his newness to society, for no one- noted 
more keenly, or apprehended more quickly, whatever 
passed in any conversation that interested him, — or, in 
other words, had his wits more acutely about him. He 
was passionately fond of the simple music — the song and 
ballad music — which he understood, and had first heard 
around " Our Auld Hearthstane" In this style he liked to 
hear his wife chant such ballads as the Flowers of the 
Forest; and, alone by his own fireside, to pour forth his 
overbrimming emotions in musical strains certainly more 
fervid and energetic than graceful or scientific. There is 
an internal, a mute music, in which Nicoll, like Burns and 
Scott, and the other timber-toned or rough-voiced bards, 
must have had power : yet, Nicoll' s actual musical accom- 
plishments did not rise greatly above those of the Ettrick 
Shepherd, whose very popular singing possessed in fire what 
it sadly wanted in grace. 

And now the last duty to Robert Nicoll is fulfilled to 
the best of the present means of those who hailed the bright 
promise of his youth, and who still cherish the memory of 
his worth and his talents, when we shall have mentioned 
to the few persons familiar with his original volume, 
that all the pieces which appeared for the first time in 
the second edition, (fifty-two in number,) were carefully 
printed from copies taken from his pencil- writing, and ex- 
amined and compared with the originals by his brother, 
who copied them ; and by Mr. Johnstone, who was quite 
familiar with his hand- writing. 

This imperfect sketch of Nicoll' s short life may be aptly 
concluded by the testimony borne to his genius by a kindred 



LIFE OF ROBERT NICOLL. 67 

spirit, — Ebenezer Elliott. If different in degree, as one star 
differs from another in glory, they, as men and poets, belong- 
ed to the same system. It was said of Nicoll by the Corn- 
Law Rhymer, that " Burns at his age had done nothing like 
him ; " and though Nicoll might neither have had the trans- 
cendant genius of a Burns to animate, and undoubtedly 
not the fiery passions of Burns to struggle with and con- 
trol, the simple fact as regards their respective written 
poetry, at the age of twenty-three, is undeniable. Of 
Nicoll, his generous admirer of Sheffield farther says — 
"Unstained and pure, at the age of twenty- three, died 
Scotland's second Burns ; happy in this, that without 
having been a 6 blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious/ 
he chose, like Paul, the right path ; and when the Terrible 
Angel said to his youth, ' Where is the wise ?■ — where is 
the scribe ? — where is the disputer ? — Hath not God made 
foolish the wisdom of this world?'— He could and did 
answer, ' By the grace of God, I am what I am? .... 
Robert Nicoll is another victim added to the hundreds of 
thousands who ' are not dead, but gone before/ to bear tru@ 
witness against the merciless." * 

* Defence of Modern Poetry. 



PART I. 



POEMS 

ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 

AND OF THE CONDITION AND FEELINGS, OF 

THE SCOTTISH PEASANTRY. 



THE HA' BIBLE. 



Chief of the Household Gods 

Which hallow Scotland's lowly cottage-homes! 
While looking on thy signs 

That speak, though dumb, deep thought upon me 
comes ; 
With glad yet solemn dreams my heart is stirr'd. 
Like childhood's when it hears the carol of a bird ! 

The Mountains old and hoar, 

The chainless Winds, the Streams so pure and free. 
The GoD-enamel'd Flowers, 

The waving Forest, the eternal Sea, 
The Eagle floating o'er the Mountain's brow, — 
Are Teacher's all ; but, ! they are not such as Thou ! 



70 THE IIA' BIBLE. 

O ! I could worship thee ! 

Thou art a gift a God of Love might give ; 
For Love, and Hope, and Joy, 

In thy Almighty- written pages live : — 
The Slave who reads shall never crouch again ; 
For, mind-inspired by thee, he bursts his feeble chain ! 

God ! unto Thee I kneel, 

And thank Thee ! Thou unto my native land — 
Yea to the outspread Earth — 

Hast stretch'd in love Thy Everlasting hand, 
And Thou hast given Earth, and Sea, and Air — 
Yea all that heart can ask of Good, and Pure, and Fair! 

And, Father, Thou hast spread 

Before Men's eyes this Charter of the Free, 
That x\LL Thy Book might read, 

And Justice love, and Truth and Liberty. 
The Gift was unto Men — the Giver God ! 
Thou Slave ! it stamps thee Man — go spurn thy weary load ! 

Thou doubly-precious Book ! 

Unto thy light what doth not Scotland owe : — 
Thou teachest Age to die, 

And Youth in Truth unsullied up to grow ! 
In lowly homes a Comforter art thou — 

A Sunbeam sent from God — an Everlasting bow ! 



O'er thy broad, ample page 
How many dim and aged 



eyes have pored : 



THE TOUN WHERE I WAS BOHN. (I 

How many hearts o'er thee 

In silence deep and holy have adored ; 
How many Mothers, by their Infants' bed, 
Thy Holy, Blessed, Pure, Child-loving words have read! 

And o'er thee soft young hands 

Have oft in truthful plighted Love been joinM ; 
And thou to wedded hearts 

Hast been a bond — an altar of the mind ! — 
Above all kingly power or kingly law 
May Scotland reverence aye — the Bible of the 1 1 a' ! 



THE TOUN WHERE I WAS BORN, 

The loch where first the stream doth rise 

Is bonniest to my e'e ; 
An yon auld-warld harae o* youth 

Is dearest aye to me. 
My heart wi' Joy may up be heez'd, 

Or down wi' Sorrow worn : 
But, O ! it never can forget 

The toun where I was born ! 

The lowly hames beside the burn, 
Where happy hearts were growin' ; 

The peasant huts where, purely bright, 
The light o' love was flowin' : 



72 THE TOXIN WHERE I WAS BORN, 

The wee bit glebes, where honest men 
Were toilin' e'en an morn, — 

Are a' before me, when I mind 
The toun where I was born. 

O ! there were bonnie faces there, 

An' hearts baith high an' warm, 
That neebors loved, an strain d fu' sair 

To keep a friend frae harm. 
Nae wealth had they; but something still 

They spared when ane forlorn, 
The puir auld beggar bodie, ca'd, 

The toun where I was born. 

The gray auld man was honour d there, 

The matron's words were cherish'd ; 
An' honesty in youthfu' hearts 

By Age's words was nourish'd. 
An' though e'en there we coudna get 

The rose without the thorn, 
It was a happy, happy place, 

The toun where I was born ! 

Yon heather-theekit hames were blithe, 

When winter nights were lang, 
TYT spinnin'- wheels, an jokin' lads, 

An' ilka lassie's sang. 
At Handsel-Monday we had mirth, 

An when the hairst was shorn, 
The Maidens cam' — 'twas cheerfu' aye, 

The toun where I was born. 



YOUTH'S DREAMS. 

I niaist could greet, I am sae wae- 

The very was are gane — 
The autumn-shilfa sits an chirps 

Upon ilk cauld hearthstane ; 
Ae auld aik-tree, or maybe twa, 

Amang the wavin' corn, 
Is a' the mark that Time has left 

0' the toun where I was born. 



YOUTH'S DREAMS. 

A pleasant thing it is to mind 

O' youthful' thoughts an' things, — 
To pu' the fruit that on the tree 

Of Memory ripely hings, — 
To live again the happiest hours 

Of happy days gane by, — 
To dream again as I ha'e dreamed 

When I was her din' kye ! 

Thae days I thought that far awa', 

Where hill an' sky seem met, 
The bounds o' this maist glorious earth 

On mountain-taps were set, — 
That sun an' moon, an blinkin' stars 

Shone down frae Heaven high 
To light Earth's garden : sae I dream'd 

When I was herdin' kye ! 



74 youth's dreams. 

I thought the little hurnies ran, 

An sang the while to me ! 
To glad me, flowers came on the earth 

And leaves upon the tree, — 
An' heather on the muirlancl grew, 

An' tarns in glens did lie : 
Of beauteous things like these I dream'd 

When I was herdin' kye ! 

Sae weel I lo'ed a' tilings of earth ! — ■ 

The trees — the buds — the flowers — ■ 
The sun — the moon — the lochs an' glens— 

The spring's an' summer's hours ! 
A wither d woodland twig would bring 

The tears into my eye : — 
Laugh on ! but there are souls of love 

In laddies herdin' kye ! 

O ! weel I mind how I would muse, 

And think, had I the power, 
How happy, happy I would make 

Ilk heart the warld o'er ! 
The gift unendin happiness — 

The joyful giver I ! — 
So pure and holy were my dreams 

When I was herdin' kye ! 

A silver stream o' purest love 
Ran through my bosom then ; 

It yearn'd to bless all human things — 
To love all living men ; 



ORDE BRAES. 75 



Yet scornfully the thoughtless fool 
Would pass the laddie by : 

But, ! I bless the happy time 
When I was herdin 5 kye ! 



ORDE BRAES. 

There's nae hame like the hame o' youth — ■ 

Nae ither spot sae fair : 
Nae ither faces look sae kind 

As the smilm faces there. 
An* I ha'e sat by monie streams — 

Ha'e travell'd monie ways ; 
But the fairest spot on the earth to me 

Is on bonnie Orde Braes. 

An ell-lang wee thing there I ran 

Wi' the ither neebor bairns, 
To pu' the hazel's shinin' nuts, 

An' to wander 'mang the ferns ; 
An* to feast on the bramble-berries brown, 

An' gather the glossy slaes 
By the burnie's side ; an aye sinsyne 

I ha'e lov'd sweet Orde Braes. 

The memories o' my father's hame, 

An' its kindly dwellers a', 
0' the friends I lov'd wi' a young heart's love, 

Ere Care that heart cou'd thraw, 



THE PLACE THAT I LOVE BEST. 

Are twined wi' the stanes o* the silver burn, 

An its fairy crooks an' bays, 
That onward sang 'neatk the gowden broom 

Upon bonnie Orde Braes. 

Aince in a day there were happy names 

By the bonnie Orde's side : — 
Nane ken how meikle peace an love 

In a straw-roof'd cot can bide. 
But thae hames are gane, an the hand o' Time 

The roofless was doth raze : — 
Laneness an' Sweetness hand in hand 

Gang ower the Orde Braes. 

! an' the sun were shinm now, 

An' O ! an' I were there, 
Wi' twa three friends o' auld langsyne 

My wanderin' joy to share ! 
For, though on the hearth o' my bairnhood's hame 

The flock o' the hills doth graze, 
Some kind hearts live to love me yet 

Upon bonnie Orde Braes. 



THE PLACE THAT I LOVE BEST. 

Where the purple heather blooms 
Among the rocks sae gray — 

Where the moor-cock's whirring flight, 
Is heard at break of day — 



THE PLACE THAT I LOVE BEST. 77 

Where Scotland's bagpipes ring 

Alang the mountain's breast — 
Where laverocks lilting sing, 

Is the place that I love best ! 

Where the lonely shepherd tends 

His bleating hill-side flock — 
Where the raven bigs its nest 

In the crevice of the rock — 
Where a guardian beacon-tower 

Seems ilk rugged mountain's crest, 
To watch aboon auld Scotland's glens, 

Is the place that I love best ! 

Where the shepherd's reeking cot 

Peeps from the broomy glen — 
Where the aik-tree throws its leaves 

O'er the lowly but and ben — 
Where the stanch auld-warld honesty 

Is in the puir man's breast, 
And truth a guest within his hame, 

Is the place that I love best ! 

Where the gray-haired peasant tells 

The deeds his sires have done, 
Of martyrs slain on Scotland's muirs, 

Of battles lost and won, — 
Wherever prayer and praise arise 

Ere toil-worn men can rest, 
From each humble cottage fane, 

Is the place that I love best ! 



THE PLACE THAT I LOYE BEST. 

Where my ain auld mither dwells, 

And longs i]k day for me, — 
While my father strokes his reverend head, 

Whilk gray eneuch maun be, — 
Where the hearts in kirkyards rest 

That were mine when youth was blest 
As we rowed amang the go wans, 

Is the place that I love best ! 

Where the plover frae the sky 

Can send its wailing song, 
Sweet mingled wi' the burnie's gush, 

That saftiy steals along — 
Where heaven taught to Robert Burns 

Its hymns in language drest — 
The land of Doon — its banks and braes — 

Is the place that I love best ! 

Where the straths are fair and green, 

And the forests waving deep — 
Where the hill-top seeks the clouds — 

Where the caller tempests sweep — 
Where thoughts of freedom come 

To me a welcome guest — 
Where the free of soul were nursed, 

Is the place that I love best ! 



THE FOLK O* OCHTERGAEN* 7^ 



THE FOLK 0' OCHTERGAEN.* 

Happy, happy be their dwallin's, 
By the burn an in the glen — ■ 

Cheerie lasses, cantie callans, 
Are they a' in Ochtergaem 

Happy was my youth amang them — ■ 

Ranim was my boyhood's hour ; 
A' the winsome ways about them, 
Now, when gane, I number o'er. 
Chorus — Happy, happy be their dwallin's, &c. 

Weel I mind ilk wood an' burnie, 
Couthie hame an' muirland fauld> — 

Ilka sonsie, cheerfu' mither^ 
An' ilk father douce an auld ! 
Chorus — Happy, happy be their dwallin's, &c« 

Weel I mind the ploys an' jokm* 
Lads and lasses used to ha'e— 
Moonlight trysts an' Sabbath wanders 
O'er the haughs an on the brae. 
Chorus — Happy, happy be their dwallin's, <&c, 

Truer lads an bonnier lasses 

Never danced beneath the moon ; — 



* Ochtergaen, so provincially named, is Auchtergaven, a village mid- 
way between Perth and Dunkeld ; and the nearest kirk-town to Nicoirs 
birth-place. 



80 THE SPINNING-WHEEL. 

Love an Friendship dwelt amang them, 
An' their daffin ne'er was done. 
Chorus — Happy, happy be their dwallin's, &c. 

I ha'e left them now for ever ; 

But, to greet would bairnly be : 
Better sing, an' wish kind Heaven 

Frae a' dule may keep them free. 
Chorus — Happy, happy be their dwallin's, &c. 

Where'er the path o' life may lead me, 

Ae thing sure — I winna mane 
If I meet wi' hands an' hearts 
Jjike those o' cantie Ochtergaen. 
Chorus — Happy, happy be their dwallin's, 
By the burn an' in the glen — 
Cheerie lasses, cantie eallans, 
Are they a' in Ochtergaen. 



THE SPINNING-WHEEL. 

I winna sing o' bluidy deeds an' waefu' war's alarms ; 
For glancin swords an prancin' steeds, for me possess 

nae charms ; 
But I will sing o' happiness which fireside bosoms feel, 
While listenm to the birrin' soun o' Scotland's Spinning 

wheel. 



THE SPINNING-WHEEL. 81 

The Spinnm-wheel ! the Spinnin- wheel ! the very name 

is dear; 
It minds me o' the winter nichts, the blithest o' the year; 
O' cozie hours in hamely ha's, while frozen was the wiel 
In ilka burn, — while lasses sang by Scotland's Spinnin- 

wheel. 

It minds me o' the happy time, when, in our boyish glee, 
At barley-bracks, we laughin' chased ilk kimmer we 

could see, 
Or danced, while loud the bagpipes rang, the Highland 

foursum reel ; 
There's naething dowie brought to mind by Scotland's 

Spinnm-wheel. 

The auld wife by the ingle sits, an draws her cannie 

thread : 
It hauds her baith in milk an meal, an a* thing she can 

need: 
An' gleesome scenes o' early days upon her spirit steal, 
Brought back to warm her wither'd heart by Scotland's 

Spinnin'-wheel ! 

O ! there is gladsome happiness, while round the fire 
are set 

The younkers, — when ahint the backs a happy pair are 
met, 

Wha wi* a silent kiss o' love their blessed paction seal, 

While sittin in their truth beside auld Scotland's Spin- 
nin'-wheel ! 



$2 OL T R AULD HEARTHSTANE. 

O ! weel I lo'e the blackbird's sang in spring-time o' the 

year; 
O ! weel I lo'e the cushat's croon, in merry May to hear; 
But o' the sounds o' love and joy, there's nane I lo'e sae 

weel — 
There's nane sae pleasant as the birr o' Scotland's Spin- 

nin'-wheel. 



OUR AULD HEARTHSTANE. 

Where ance the cosie fire was bien, 

The winter rain-drap owrie fa's ; 
My father's floor wi' grass is green, 

And roofless are the crumblin' wa's. 
Auld thochts, auld times, upon my heart 

Are backward rowin' ane by ane : 
We'll bow our houghs and hae a crack 

About them on our auld hearthstane ! 

Our laigh cot-house I mind fu' weel : 

On ae side mither spinning sat, 
Droning auld sonnets to her wheel, — 

And purring by her side the cat. 
Anent was sair-toil'd father's chair, 

Wha tauld us stories, sad and lane, 
0' puir folk's waes, until we wished 

Them a' beside our cosh hearthstane. 



OUR ATJLD HEARTHSTANE. 83 

And when the supper-time was o'er, 

The Beuk was tane as it should be, 
And heaven had its trysted hour 

Aneath that sooty auld roof-tree : 
Syne ilka wean was sung to sleep 

"WT sangs o' deeds and ages gane ; 
And rest was there until the sun 

Cam' blinkin' on our auld hearthstane. 

Auld stane, had ye a heart to feel, 

Ye wad been blithe as ony kitten, 
To hear o' ilka sang and reel, 

And prank made up while round ye sittin'. 
How days o' feastm cam* wi' speed. 

When dubs were hard as ony bane. 
How Pace, and Yule, and Halloween 

Were keepit round our auld hearthstane. 

When winter nights grew white and lang. 

The lads and lasses cam' wi' spinning, 
And mony a joke and mony a sang 

Gaed round while wheels were busy rinning. 
And syne whan ten cam* round about, 

Ilk lassie's joe her wheel has ta'en, 
And courting o'er the rigs they gang, 

And leave us and our auld hearthstane ! 

And meikle mair I could unfauld, 

How yearly we gat rantin' kirns ; 
And how the Minister himsel' 

Cain duly carritchin' the bairns : 



84 OUR AULD HEARTHSTANE. 

Vow, sic a face ! I tremble yet ! 

Gosh guide's ! it was an awfu ane ; 
It gart our hearts come to our mouths, 
While cowrin round our auld hearthstane ! 

Weel, weel, the wheels are broken now, 

The lads and lasses auld or dead, 
The green grass o'er their graves doth grow, 

Or gray hairs theek their aged head. 
My parents baith are far awa', 

My brithers fechtin', toilin' men, 
It warms my heart unto them a', 

The sight o' this our auld hearthstane ! 

When I forget this wee, auld house, 

When I forget what here was taught, 
My head will be o' little use, 

My heart be rotten, worse than naught. 
Sin birds could sing upo' thae was, 

I've been in chaumers mony ane; 
But ne'er saw I a hearth like this, 

No, naething like our auld hearthstane. 

Hearthstane! though wae, I needna greet, 

What gude on earth wad whingeing do? 
The earth has fouth o' trusty hearts, 

Let him wha doubts it speir at you. 
Ae wish hae I — that brither man, 

The warld o'er, were, bluid and bane, 
Sic truthfu, honest, trusty chields, 

As ance sat round our auld hearthstane. 



we'll a' go pu' the heather. 



WE'LL A' GO PIT THE HEATHEB. 

We'll a' go pu the heather — 

Our byres are a' to theek : 
Unless the peat-stack get a hap, 

We'll a* be smoored wi' reek. 
Wi' rantin' sang, awa we'll gang, 

While summer skies are blue, 
To fend against the Winter cauld 

The heather we will pu'. 

I like to pu' the heather, 

We're aye sae mirthfu' where 
The sunshine creeps atour the crags, 

Like ravelled golden hair. 
Where on the hill tap we can stand, 

Wi' joyfu' heart I trow, 
And mark ilk grassy bank and holm, 

As we the heather pu'. 

I like to pu' the heather — 

Where harmless lambkins run, 
Or lay them down beside the burn, 

Like gowans in the sun ; 
Where ilka foot can tread upon 

The heath-flower wet wi' dew, 
When comes the starnie ower the hill, 

While we the heather pu'. 



SG MY HAME. 

I like to pu the heather, 

For ane can gang awa, 
But no before a glint o' lore 

On some anes e'e doth fa'. 
Sweet words we dare to whisper there, 

" My hinny and my doo," 
Till maistly we wi' joy could greet 

As we the heather pu\ 

We'll a go pu' the heather — 

For at yon mountain fit 
There stands a broom bush by a burn, 

"Where twa young folk can sit : 
lie meets me there at morning's rise, 

My beautiful and true. 
My father's said the word — the morn 

The heather we will pu . 



MY HAME. 



O ! I ha'e loved the heather hills, 

Where summer breezes blaw ; 
An' I hae loved the glades that gang 

Through yonder green wood-shaw ! 
But now the spot maist dear to me 

Is where the moon doth beam 
Down through the sleepm leaves, to watch 

My ain wee cantie hame. 



MY HAME. 87 

My cantie hame ! its roof o' straw, 

Aneath yon thorn I see — 
Yon cosie bush that couthie keeps 

My wife and bairnies three. 
There's green grass round my cottage sma', 

An' by it rins a stream, 
"Whilk ever sings a bonnie sang 

To glad my cantie hame. 

"When delvin' in the sheugh at e'en, 

Its curlin' reek I see ; 
I ken the precious things at hame 

Are thinkin' upon me. 
I ken my restin' chair is set, 

Where comes the warmest gleam — 
I ken there's langin' hearts in thee, 

My ain wee cantie hame. 

! can I do but love it weel, 

When a* thing's lovesome there ? 
My cheerfu' wife — my laughin' weans— 

The morn an e'enin' prayer. 
The Sabbath's wander in the woods, 

An' by the saut-sea faem ; — 
The warst o' hearts might learn to love, 

My ain wee cantie hame. 

The blessin's o* a hame-bless'd heart — 

Be warm upon it a' ! — 
On wife an' bairns may love an' peace 

Like sunbeams joyous fa' ! 



88 MY GRANDFATHER. 

Blithe thoughts are rinnin' through my heart, 

! thoughts I canna name — 
Sae glad are they — while thinkin' o' 

My aiu wee cantie hame. 



MY GRANDFATHER.* 

Hale be thy honest trusty heart, 

And hale thy held and snawy pow, 
The hand of eld ne'er furrowed o'er 

A baulder or a manlier brow. 
The laddie wha was ance thy pet, 

Has been in places far awa', 
But he thy marrow hasna met 

Amang the great nor yet the sma\ 

Ance proud eneuch was I to sit 

Beside thee in the muirland kirk, 
A ruling elder — ane o' weight, 

Nae wonder though your oe did smirk: 
And braw eneuch was I to find 

My head the preacher's hand upon, 
While by the kirkyard stile he cracked 

Of holy things wi' Elder John ! 

* This patriarch of Auchtergaven, the maternal grandfather of NicoII, 
still survives, at the venerable age of eighty-seven, in the full possession 
of his mental faculties, and of remarkable bodily strength and activity. 
He was a respectable farmer of the Old School, but has long been re- 
tired. He is, probably, the very last wearer of the broad, blue Lowland 
bonnet. With " Elder John" — or Mr. John Fenwick — his grandson, 
Robert, was a very great favourite. To those who read the above poem 
it is superfluous to say that the affection was mutual and ferveDt. 



MY GRANDFATHER. 89 

And syne as hame alang the muir 

I prattling by your side did rin, 
Ye mind how ye rebuked thae thochts — 

And ca'd them vanity and sin. 
But pennies frae your auld breek pouch 

"WY dauds o' counsel ye would gie, 
The last war gude — but aye the first 

I liket best, I winna lee ! 

Thy daily fireside worship dwalls 

"Within this inmost soul of mine: 
Thy earnest prayer — sae prophet-like — - 

For a' on earth I wadna' tyne. 
And you and granny sang the Psalms 

In holy rapt sincerity; — 
My granny! — dinna greet, auld man — 

She's looking down on you and me. 

Can I forget how lang and weel 

The carritches ye made me read ? 
Or yet the apples — rosy anes — 

I gat to gar me mend my speed ? 
Can I forget affection's words, 

That frae your lips like pearls ran? 
Can I forget the heart that prayed 

To see me aye an honest man ? 

And mind ye how we gat us beuks, 
And read wi* meikle care and skill, 

Until ye thocht this head wad wag 
The pu'pit's holy place intil ? 



90 OUR AULD GUDEMAN. 

For mony an idle whim of mine 

Wad my auld father journeys gang ; 

His auld heart danced when I did right, 
And sair it grieved when I did wrang. 

But mair than a* — frae beuks sae auld— 

Frae mony treasured earnest page, 
Thou traced for me the march of Truth, 

The path of Right from age to age : 
A peasant, auld, and puir, and deaf, 

Bequeathed this legacy to me, 
I was his bairn — he filled my soul 

With love for Liberty ! 

Be blessings on thy reverend head, 

I dinna need for thee to pray ; 
The path is narrow, but nae een 

E'er saw thee from it stray. 
God bears his ancient servants up — 

He's borne thee since thy life began : — 
I'm noble by descent : — Thy grave 

Will hold an honest man. 



OUR AULD GUDEMAN. 

He was a carle in his day, 

And siccar bargains he could mak, 
When o'er a bicker he was set, 

And deep in a twa-handed crack. 



JANET DUNBAR. 1 

He fought horse-coupers at the tryst, 

The smith and miller aft did ban ; 
For, whether be it at wark or play, 

The gree was wi' our auld Gudeman ! 

At kirk and preachins duly he 

The sermons sleepit — drank his gill- 
He cured disease in man and beast — 

And had o' Brown and Erskine skill. 
The trysts and markets kent him weel,— 

In quarrel, bargain, cog or can, 
He took and paid an equal share 

Wi' friend and fae — our auld Gudeman. 

Three wives he had, and bairns sax, 

And, 'tween the scripture and the taws, 
He gart them a* behave and work, 

And mak' nae mony hums and haws. 
Now wi* a staff, about the dykes, 

He stoiters, auld, and held, and wan ; 
And what he's been he'll ever be — ■ 

A ranting, dainty, auld Gudeman ! 



JANET DUNBAR. 

A sonsy auld carline is Janet Dunbar— 

A donsy auld carline is Janet Dunbar ; 

For a gash skilly body, weel kent near and far, 

Through the hale kintra side, cantie Janet Dunbar. 



.92 JANET DUNBAR. 

Folk speer her advice, baith the greatest and least, 
For she cures a* diseases o' man and o' beast ; 
She has words that will keep awa witches and deils — 
She has syrups in bottles, and herbs in auld creels ; 
To caulds and rheumatics she proves sic a fae, 
They canna get rest in the parish a day. 
In this queer kind o' warld there 's mony a waur 
Than our cheery auld carline, gash Janet Dunbar ! 

A sonsy, &c. 

Her hame is a howf to the bairnies at school, 
And she dauts them and bauds them fu' couthie and weel, 
Till in her auld lug a* their sorrows they tell — 
For she'll scauld for their sakes e'en the Dominie's sel\ 
But Janet's high time is when night settles doun, 
And a' the auld wives gather in through the toun : — 
To tell what they are na, and what ithers are, 
Is meat, drink, and claithing to Janet Dunbar ! 

A sonsy, &c. 

And Janet's auld house has a but and a ben, 
Where twa folk can meet and let naebody ken ; 
For Janet thinks true love nane e'er should restrain, 
Having had, thretty years syne, a lad o' her ain. 
And then, when the whispering and courting is done, 
For some lee-like story is Janet in tune, 
About some bluidy doings in some Highland scaur, — 
You're a queer ane ! — 'deed are you, now, Janet Dunbar ! 

A sonsy, &c. 



JANET MACBEAN. !_>3 

But when some o' her kimmers hae kirsened a wean, 
Then Janet, sae braid, in her glory is seen : 
She winks to the neebours, and jokes the gudeman, 
Till his face grows sae red that he maistly could ban ; 
Syne she turns to the mither, and taks the wean's loof, 
And tells that he'll neither be laggard nor coof ! 
You're an auld happy body — sae, bright be your star, 
And lang may you stump about, Janet Dunbar. 

A sonsy auld carline is Janet Dunbar — 

A donsy auld carline is Janet Dunbar ; 

For a gash skilly body, weel kent near and far, 

Through the hale kintra side, cantie Janet Dunbar. 



JANET MACBEAN. 

Janet Macbean a public keeps, 

An' a merry auld wife is she ; 
An she sells her ale wi' a jaunty air, 

That would please your heart to see. 
Her drink 's o' the best — she's hearty aye, 

An' her house is cosh an' clean, — 
There 's no an auld wife in the public line 

Can match wi' Janet Macbean. 

She has aye a curtsy for the laird 
"When he comes to drink his can, 

An' a laugh for the farmer an' his wife, 
An' a joke for the farmer's man. 



94 MINISTER TAM. 

She toddles but, and she toddles ben, 

Like ony wee bit queen — 
There's no an auld wife in the public line 

Can match wi' Janet Macbean. 

The beggar wives gaug a' to her, 

An she serves them wi* bread an* cheese ; — 
Her bread in bannocks, an' cheese in whangs, 

Wi' a blithe gudewill she gi'es. 
Yow ! the kintra-side will miss her sair 

When she's laid aneath the green : — 
There *s no an auld wife in the public line 

Can match wi' Janet Macbean. 

Among ale-house wives she rules the roast ; 

For upon the Sabbath days 
She puts on her weel-hain'd tartan plaid 

An the rest o' her Sabbath claes ; 
An' she sits, nae less ! in the minister's seat : 

Ilk psalm she lilts, I ween, — 
There's no an auld wife in the public line 

Can match wi* Janet Macbean. 



MINISTER TAM. 

A wee raggit laddie he cam' to our toun, 
Wi' his hair for a bannet — his taes through his shoon 
An' aye when we gart him rise up in the morn, 
The ne'er-do-weel herdit the kye 'mang the corn : 



MINISTER TAM. 95 

We sent him to gather the sheep on the hill, — 
No for wark, but to keep him frae mischief an ill ;— 
But he huntit the ewes, an he rade on the ram ] 
Sic a hellicat deevil was Minister Tarn ! 

My auld Auntie sent him for sugar an' tea, — 

She kent na, douce woman ! how toothsome was he : — 

As hamewith he cam* wi't he paikit a bairn, 

An' harried a nest doun amang the lang fern ; 

Then, while he was restin within the green shaw, 

My auld Auntie's sugar he lickit it a* : — 

Syne a drubbin' to miss, he sair sickness did sham : 

Sic a slee tricksy shangie was Minister Tarn ! 

But a Carritch he took, when his ain deevil bade, — 
An' wi' learn in the laddie had maistly gaen mad ; 
Nae apples he pu'ed now, nae bee-bikes he smoored, 
The bonnie wee trouties gat rest in the ford, — 
Wi' the lasses at e'enin' nae mair he would fight — 
He was readin' and spellin frae mornm to night : 
He grew mim as a puddock an quiet as a lamb, — 
Gudesakes! sic a change was on Minister Tarn! 

His breeks they were torn an his coat it was bare ; 
But he gaed to the school, an he took to the lear : 
He fought wi' a masterfu heart up the brae, 
Till to see him aye toilin' I maistly was wae. 
But his wark now is endit, — our Tammie has grown 
To a kirk wi' a steeple — a black silken gown, — 
Sic a change frae our laddie wha barefooted cam',— - 
Wi* his wig white wi' pouther, is Minister Tam ! 



06 THE DOMINIE. 



THE DOMINIE. 

Cam' ye e'er by our toun ? 

Danced ye e'er upon its green ? 
The smeeky names o' our toun 

Sae blithesome, ha r e ye ever seen ? 
There *s rantin' chields in our toun — 

The wabster, smith, an* monie mae; 
But 'mang the lads o' our toun 

The foremost is the Dominie ! 

'Bout a' auld-farrant things he kens — 

The Greeks an' bluidy Romans too ; 
An' ithers wi' auld warld names 

That sairly crook a body's mou. 
He kens the places far awa 

Where black folk dwall ayont the sea; 
An' how an why the st amies shine 

Is weel kent to the Dominie I 

Wi' meikle words an' wisdom nods 

The fleggit fearfu' bairns he rules ; 
An' he can tell the Hebrew names 

0' aumries an three-leggit stools ! 
A dead mans skull wi' girnin' teeth 

Frae out the auld kirkyard has he : 
For droll an' gey an' fearsome things 

There 's nane can match the Dominie. 

0' beuks a warld he has read, 

An' wi' his tongue can fight like mad, 



THE DOMINIE. 97 

Till itlier folk he sometimes mak's 

That they will neither bind nor haud : 

And if they're dour and winna ding, 
Their settlin' soon he does them gi'e 

Wi' words o* queer lang-nebbit speech — 
Sae learned is the Dominie ! 

There's yon auld soger, wha has been 

Where oranges like brambles hing,— 
There's ne'er a ane the clachan o'er 

Can crack like him 'bout ony thing : 
They say that wi' the deil he deals ! — 

It may be sae ; but even he 
Maun steek his gab when clinkin' ben 

At e'enin' comes the Dominie ! 

An' sic a face he does put on 

On Sabbath when he sings the Psalm ! 
The auld wives of the parochin 

Are thinkin him a gospel lamb. 
At weddin's, when the lave are blithe, 

Wi' auld folk doucely sitteth he 
Till Minister an' Elders gang ; — 

But syne — up bangs the Dominie ! 

Frae cheek to chin — frae lug to lug — 

The lasses round he kisses a', 
An loups an dances, cracks his thoums, 

Nor hamewith steers till mornin' daw ; 
An' whiles at e'en to our door cheek 

He comes, an' sleelie winks on me,— 



08 THE SMITH. 

Yestreen, ayont the kailyard dyke, 
I 'greed to wed the Dominie ! 



THE SMITH. 



Our Burn-the-wind was stout and Strang, 

His stature mounted ellwands twa. 
His grip was like a smiddy vice, 

And he could gi'e a fearfu thraw. 
At hammerin aim he was gude, 

A' kinds o' tackle — pot or pan — 
Or gun, or sword — be't make or mend — 

Clink, clink — our smith he was the man. 

A' things o' airn kind he made 

As weel as hand o* man could do ; 
And he could court a bonnie lass, 

And drink a reaming coggie too. 
Frae side to side, the clachan o'er 

Ilk gudewife's bottle he had pree'd, 
And ilka lass had touzled weel : — 

The smith at wooin' aye cam speed \ 

Be't late or soon — or auld or new — 
The smith the feck o a' things kend, 

And if a story wasna right, 

A story he could mak or mend ! 

He was a perfect knowledge-box — 
An oracle to great and sma' — 



AULD DONALD. 99 

And fifty law-pleas lie had lost, 
He was sae weel acquaint wi' law ! 

He naigs could shoe, and sangs could sing, 

And say a grace upon a pinch ; 
Could lick a loon at tryst or fair — 

A man was trusty every inch ! 
He ruled the roast — our Burn-the-wind — 

Be he at home, be he a-field — 
In love, or drink, or lear, or wark, 

Yow ! but he was a famous chield ! 



AULD DONALD. 

Donald fought in France and Spain, 

Donald mony men hath killed, 
And frae the pouches o' the slain 

Aft has he his spleuchan filled. 
Donald was a soldier good, 

Though whiles the bicker made him fa', 
He meikle fought, and plundered mair, 

Where might was right, and force was law ! 

Donald's pow grew white as lint, 

Donald langer wou'dna do— 
Hame he cam wi' coppers six 

Ilk day to melt in mountain-dew. 
Donald tells his fearfu' tales, 

Donald drinks like ony sow, 
And mony battles does he fecht, 

Wi' bourtree bushes, when he's fou. 



!00 BONNIE BESSIE LEE. 

Donald, a' the laddies' heads 

Has filled wi' thoughts o' sword and gun ; 
He gars them fecht like sparrow-cocks, 

And thinks it nocht but famous fun. 
Now dinna crook your saintly mou 

At Donald's sin and Donald's shame : 
Ye ken, by Donald and his like 

We've gotten — such a glorious name ! 



BONNIE BESSIE LEE. 

SONG. 

Bonnie Bessie Lee had a face fu' o' smiles, 

And mirth round her ripe lip was aye dancing slee ; 

And light was the footfa', and winsome the wiles, 
O' the flower o' the parochin — our ain Bessie Lee ! 

Wi' the bairns she would rin, and the school laddies paik, 
And o'er the broomy braes like a fairy would flee, 

Till auld hearts grew young again wi' love for her sake : — 
There was life in the blithe blink o' Bonnie Bessie Lee ! 

She grat wi' the waefu', and laughed wi' the glad, 
And light as the wind 'mang the dancers was she ; 

And a tongue that could jeer, too, the little limmer had, 
Whilk keepit aye her ain side for bonnie Bessie Lee ! 

And she whiles had a s weatheart, and sometimes had twa — 
A limmer o' a lassie ! — but, atween you and me. 



FIDDLER JOHNNIE. 101 

Her warm wee bit heartie slie ne'er threw awa', 
Though mony a ane had sought it frae Bonny Bessie Lee ! 

But ten years had gane since I gazed on her last, — 
For ten years had parted my auld hame and me ; 

And I said to mysel' as her mither's door I passed, 
" Will I ever get anither kiss frae Bonnie Bessie Lee?" 

But Time changes a' thing — the ill-natured loon ! 

Were it ever sae rightly he'll no let it be ; 
But I rubbit at my een, and I thought I would swoon, 

How the carle had come roun' about our ain Bessie Lee ! 

The wee laughing lassie was a gudewife grown auld — 
Twa weans at her apron and ane on her knee ; 

She was douce, too, and wiselike — and wisdom's sae 
cauld : — — 
I would rather ha'e the ither ane than this Bessie Lee ! 



FIDDLER JOHNNIE. 

SONG. 

A lang by yon burn-side 

I saw him gang yestreen,— 
His fiddle upon his back 

Was row'd in claith o' green* 
His wifie led her Johnny :— 

O' een she had but ane ; 
While he, for a' his mirth, 

Puir bo^ie ! has gat nane. 



102 FIDDLER JOHNNIE. 

He canna see a blink, 

Yet doesna greet an' grane ; 
An' ither folk he hauds 

Fu' cheerfu' but an ben. 
A can tie spring he plays — 

A cantie sang he sings : 
The Fiddler weel is kent, — 

For mirth wi* him he brings. 

Monie a merry nicht 

The auld blind man has been 
Wi' great folk in the ha' — 

TVT sma' folk on the green. 
He's aye a welcome guest 

Wherever he does gang, — 
They gi'e him meat an claes, 

An' he gi'es them a sang. 

The fient a hair cares he 

For ony mortal bodie, — 
He'll geek e'en at the Minister, 

An' joke wi' laird an' lady ! 
The duddie plaid Pretence, 

He, laughin, rives in twa, — 
A fool an' knave the Fiddler 

A fool and knave doth ca' ! 

! leeze me on the Fiddler : 
If we had monie mae 

As blithe in heart as he, 
We wou'dna be sae wae ! 



THE PROVOST. 103 

An' gif, like him, the truth 

To tell, we a' would 'gree, 
The world where we live 

Would meikle better be ! 



THE PROVOST. 

A bare-leggit callant came out o* the north, 

And set himself down in our borough, 
The loon had a dour and a miserly look, 

Folk said he'll no leave in a hurry. 
He was twenty-first cousin to some Highland laird, 

His tartan was o' the chiefs colour ; 
But nae sort o' wark cam a-jee to the Celt 

If ye made him but sure o' the siller ! 

He was toiling and earning baith early and late, 

Though lazy folk tried to deride him ; 
He was a' body's servant and a* body's jest — 

Fient cared he, if a* body paid him. 
His kilt he exchanged for a braw pair o' breeks, 

The Gaelic nae langer did snivel ; 
He began to be likit — had Satan been rich, 

To Satan he would ha'e been civil. 

He gat him a carritch, and set him to spell — 
The clans are but so-so at reading ; 

He soon was a clerk, and a clerk o' the best- 
Dour devil! he a* thing cam' speed in ! 



104 THE PROVOST. 

He bowed and he becket, till by a bit desk 
He had come to a safe kind o' anchor; 

And ere lang our slee callant was aff to the kirk 
Wi' the dochter o' Guineas the banker I 

He could lee like an apple-wife — cheat like the deil, 

He was surely created for rising : 
Although he had died in a baronet's chair 

It wadna been naething surprising. 
Our Provost was old — he was dotard and blind, 

And death took him aff in a hurry : 
Syne Banker MacTurk, wi' his pouckfu's o' gowd, 

Was exalted to rule o'er the borough. 

The Provost had power, and the Provost had sense ; 

Great folk ga'e him places by dozens, — 
He sold them his vote, and they quartered a score 

Of his lang-leggit, bare Highland cousins. 
He ruled a' the council — the bailies an' a' — 

To the land-loupers acted like Nero ; 
The Provost was siccar — wha lost or wha wan, 

Number ane was aye taken gude care o'. 

But Death leuket ben wi' a grim angry leuk, 

And the wily auld Provost was ended : 
Twa opinions divided the feck o' the toun 

As to whilk way his spirit had wended. 
An auld doited weaver misca'd him fu' sair, 

And said he deserved the wae woodie : 
He said that o' a Provost ! — I'm sure you'll agree. 

He maun been but a kae-witted bodie ! 



THE BAILIE. 105 



THE BAILIE. 



Down the street the Bailie comes — 

Faith he keeps the causey-crown, 
He bans the sergeants black and blue, 

The bellman gets the name o' loon. 
He can speak in monie tongues, 

Gude braid Scots and hieland Erse ; 
The king o' Bailies is our ain, 

Sic men I fear are unco scarce ! 

At feasting-time the powers aboon 

At cramming try their utmost skill ; 
But faith the Bailie dings them a' 

At spice and wine, or whisky gill. 
The honest man can sit and drink, 

And never ha'e his purse to draw ; 
He helps to rule this sinfu town, 

And as it should — it pays for a\ 

And then to see him in the kirk, 

Wi* gowden chain about his neck ! 
He's like a king upon a throne — 

I say it wi' a* meet respect. 
And to the folk who fill the lafts, 

Fu monie a fearsome look he gi'es, 
To see that a' are duly filled 

Wi' terror of the dignities ! 



106 THE HOPES OF AGE. 

A pickle here — a pickle there, 

Of borough siller Bailie gets, 
And he would need — it's no a joke, 

To fitly fill a Bailie's seat ! 
The Bailie likes the gude auld ways, 

And yet he langs for something new ; 
He thinks twal corporation feasts 

Within the year are unco few ! 



THE HOPES OF AGE. 

We maun wear awa', Robbie, we needna repine, 
This head lang has lain in that bosom of thine ; 
We are auld, we are frail, we are lanely and a', 
Nae mane will we mak* though we're wearin' awa' ! 

Frae our auld cottar-house, it winna be lang 
Ere to the cauld kirkyard thegether we gang ; 
Though nae bonnie bairnie to love us ha'e we, 
Yet some will be wae for my Robbie and me ! 

Nae mair will our ingle blink when it is mirk, 
Our twa auld white pows will be missed in the kirk, 
And the auld beggar bodie will thowless gang by, 
And for the gudewife and our awmous will sigh ! 

To the hillock that wraps us aneath its green sod, 
The feet o' our neebours will soon mak' a road, 
And the bairnies will greet 'cause the auld folk are gane. 
Who cuddled them aft till o' griefs they had nane. 



HOME THOUGHTS. 107 

When youngsters come hameward frae lands far awa', 
'Bout me and my Robbie they'll speer and they'll ca', 
They'll think o' the day when youth's simmer was fine, 
And they'll mourn for us gane, wi' the hours o' langsyne. 

We maun wear awa', Robbie — we need fearna to gae, 
Did we e'er fail a friend — did we e'er wrang a fae ? 
Our life has been lowly, as lowly can be, 
And death winna part my auld gudeman and me. 



HOME THOUGHTS. 

Though Scotland's hills be far awa', 

And her glens, where the clear silver burnies row, 
I see them and hear her wild breezes blaw, 

O'er the moors where the blue-bells and heather grow. 

Oh, hame is sweet ! — but thae hames o* thine 
Are the kindliest far that the sun doth see ; 

And, though far awa' I have biggit mine, 
As my mother's name they are dear to me ! 

I love the tale o' thy glories auld, 

Which thy shepherds tell on the mountain side ; 
Of thy Martyrs true and thy Warriors bauld, 

Who for Thee and for Freedom lived and died! 

Land of my youth ! though my heart doth move, 
And sea-like my blood rises high at thy name, 

H 



108 THE BATTLE WORD. 

'Boon a' thing there 's ae thing in thee I love — 
The virtue and truth o' thy Poor Mans Hame. 

The Poor Man's Hame ! where I first did ken 
That the soul alone makes the good and great — 

That glitter and glare are false and vain, 
And Deceit upon Glory's slave doth wait. 

Thy Poor Man's Hame ! wi' its roof o' strae, 

A hut as lowly as lowly can be — 
Through it the blast sae cauldrife does gae ; 

Yet, Hame o' the Lowly, Fin proud o* thee ! 

Scotland ! to thee thy sons afar 

Send blessings on thy rocks, thy flood and faem — 
On mountain and muir, on glen and scaur — 

But deeper blessings still on thy Poor Man's Hame ! 



THE BATTLE WORD. 

In Scotland's cause — for Scotland's gude, 
We'll blithely shed our dearest bluid, — 
An stand or fa' as freeman should, 

As we hae done before. 
Now proudly come the foemen on, 
Against auld Scotland's mountain throne ; 
The sun its last on them hath shone, — 

Claymore ! 



THE BATTLE WORD, 109 

We're freemen, an maun ne'er be slaves — ■ 
We fight for heather-covered graves — 
To tell yon comin' warrior-waves 

That men our mothers bore; 
For maidens loved — for parents dear, 
Fourscore would battle were it here, 
An' stand like us, nor think o' fear — 

Claymore ! 

They break — they halt — they form again — 
We well have borne the battle-strain : 
The grass that clothes the reeking plain 

Is wet with stranger gore. 
Remember ! for our native soil, 
That a' we love at hame may smile ; 
Nerve ilka arm for bloody toil — 

Claymore ! 

We've conquered ! wives an bairns a*, 
We've conquered ! baith for grit an' sma J -» 
For maid and matron — puir and braw — 
The bluidy darg is o'er. 
Our fathers' weapon and our ain, 
Thoult be our sons 5 we brawly ken- 
By foughten fields ! by foemen slain ! 

Claymore ! 



PART II. 



SONGS, CHIEFLY SCOTTISH. 



THE MUIR 0' GORSE AND BROOM. 

I winna bide in your castle ha's, 

Nor yet in your lofty towers, — 
My heart is sick o* your gloomy hame, 

An sick o' your darksome bowers ; 
An O ! I wish I were far awa 

Frae their grandeur an their gloom, 
Where the freeborn lintie sings its sang, 

On the muir o' gorse an broom. 

Sae weel as I like the healthfu gale 

That blads fu' kindly there, 
An' the heather brown, an the wild blue-bell, 

That wave on the muirland bare ; 
An the singing birds, an the humming bees, 

An' the little lochs that toom 
Their gushin' burns to the distant sea, 

O'er the muir o' gorse an broom. 



THE BELOVED ONE. Ill 

O ! if I had a dwallin there, 

Biggit laigh by a burnie's side, 
Where ae aik-tree, in the simmer-time, 

Wi' its leaves that hame might hide, — 
O ! I wad rejoice frae day to day, 

As blithe as a young bridegroom ; 
For dearer than palaces to me 

Is the muir o' gorse and broom ! 

In a lanely cot on a muirland wild, 

My mither nurtured me : 
0' the meek wild-flowers I playmates made, 

An* my hame wi' the wandering bee ; 
An ! if I were far awa 

Frae your grandeur an' your gloom, 
"WT them again, an the bladdin' gale, 

On the muir o' gorse an broom ! 



THE BELOVED ONE. 

O ! the rose is like her ruby lip, 

And the lily like her skin ; 
And her mouth like a faulded violet, 

Wi' the scented breath within ; 
And her een are like yon bonnie flower 

When the dew is in its cup; — 
As the bee frae it its honey draws, 

I love frae them maun sip. 



112 THE BELOVED ONE. 

O ! her voice is like yon little bird's 

That sits in the cherry-tree : "* 
For the air o' the sky and the heart o' man 

It fills wi' its melodie. 
Her hand is soft as the downy peach 

Upon yon branch that hiDgs ; 
An' her hair its gloss sae rich has stown 

Frae the bonnie blackbird's wings ! 

O ! her smile is like the sun that shines 

Upon yon fair wa'-flower — 
As the bonnie buds this plays among, 

Her face that wanders o'er. 
But a love- warm kiss o' her rosy mou' 

Wi' naething can compare, — 
Sae meikle o' bliss an' holiness 

The craving heart might sair. 

O ! the garden-flowers are fair an' pure — 

The rose an' the lily too ; 
An' the wall-flower rich in Nature's wealth- 

An' the peeping vitflet blue : 
O ! bonnie as Heaven itsel', an' pure, 

Are the flowers o' ilka kind ; 
But they ha'ena the womanly purity 

O' my darling Jeanie's mind ! 



THE MAKING O* THE HAY. 113 



THE MAKING 0' THE HAY. 

Across the rigs we'll wander 

The new-mawn hay amang, 
And hear the blackbird in the wood, 

And gi'e it sang for sang ; — 

We'll gi'e it sang for sang, we will, 
For ilka heart is gay, 

As lads and lasses trip alang, 
At making o' the hay ! 

It is sae sweetly scented, 
It seems a maiden's breath ; 

Aboon, the sun has wither'd it, 
But there is green beneath ;— 
But there is caller green beneath, 

Come, lasses, foot away ! 

The heart is dowie can be cauld, 

At making o' the hay ! 

Step lightly o'er, gang saftly by, 

Mak' rig and furrow clean, 
And coil it up in fragrant heaps, — 

We maun ha'e done at e'en ; — 

We maun ha'e done at gloaming e'en ; 
And when the clouds grow gray, 

Ilk lad may kiss his bonnie lass 
Amang the new-made hay ; 



1 t 4 DOWN BY THE WOOD. 



MENIE. 

Fu* ripe, ripe was her rosy lip, 

And raven was her hair ; 
And white, white was her swan-like neck — 

Her een like starnies were ! 
As raven, raven was her hair, 

So like the snaw her brow ; 
And the words that fell frae her wee saft niou' 

Were happy words I trow ! 

And pure, pure was her maiden heart, 

And ne'er a thought o' sin 
Durst venture there — an angel dwelt 

Its borders a* within ! 
And fair as was her sweet bodie, 

Yet fairer was her mind ; 
Menie's the queen amang the flowers — 

The wale of womankind. 



DOWN BY THE WOOD. 

Down by the wood 

When daylight is breaking, 
And the first breath of dawn 

The green leaves is shaking, 



MY AULD GTJDEWIFE. 115 

'Tis bliss, without limit, 

Alone to be straying — 
To hear the wild-wood birds, 

And what they are saying ! 

Down by the wood 

When it's noon in the heaven, 
And the steer to the shade 

Of the hedgerow is driven, — 
'Tis sweet to recline 

In the beechen-tree's shadow, 
And drink all the glories 

Of field, forest, meadow ! 

Down by the wood 

At the fall of the gloaming, 
'Mong clear crystal dew-drops 

'Tis sweet to be roaming : — 
The hush of the wheat- ears — 

The gushing of water — 
The shiver of green leaves — 

The music of nature ! 



MY AULD GUDEWIFE. 

There 's nane like you— there 's nane like you : 
The youngsters blithe around us now 

Are bonnie a', baith grit an' sma' ; 
But, auld gudewife, there 's nane like you. 



116 MY AULD GUDEWIFE. 

Nae doubt they're dear to ither hearts ; 
But since thae bairns atween us grew, 
You're mair than a* the earth to me — 
There 's nane like you — there 's nane like you. 

Chorus — There 's nane like you — there *s nane 
like you, &c. 

Within my arms ye now ha'e lain 

For springs an' summers forty-two : 
You've cheer d my grief an' shared my joy — 
There 's nane like you — there 's nane like you. 

Chorus — There 's nane like you — there 's nane 
like you, &c. 

Ye ance were fair as ony here — 

Your cheek as fresh — your een as blue ; 
Cut wither'd, wrinkled as ye are — 
There s nane like you — there 's nane like you. 

Chorus — There 's nane like you — there 's nane 
like you, &c. 

Ye mind, gudewife, when we could loup 

And dance as they are dancin' now ; 
I lo'ed ye then — I lo'e ye yet — 

There 's nane like you — there 's nane like you. 

Chorus — There 's nane like you — there 's nane 
like you, &c. 

A meikle share o* love we've had 
The warld as we've warsled through : 



THE COURTIN* TIME. 117 

My auld heart dances thinking o't — 
There 9 a nane like you — there 's nane like you. 

Chorus — There 's nane like you — there 's nane 
like you, &c. 

There come your childer an' their joes 

Wi' daffin unco tired I trow : 
Cleek hame wi' me, my auld gudewife— 
There 's nane like you — there *s nane like you. 

Chorus — There 's nane like you—there 's nana 
like you : 
The youngsters blithe around us now 
Are bonnie a', baith grit an' sma : 

But, auld gudewife, there 's nane like you. 



THE COURTIN' TIME. 

Our Jean likes the mornin' when milkin' the kye, 
An' May thinks the noontide gangs merrily by ; 
But nane o* them a' are sae saft and serene 
As the hours when the lads come a-courtin' at e'en — 

A-courtin' at e'en — a-courtin at e'en — 
As the hours when the lads come a-courtin' at e'en ! 

The sun quietly slips o'er the top o' the hill, 
An' the plover its gloamin sang whistles fu' shrill, 
Syne dimness comes glidin where daylight hath been, 
An* the dew brings the lads who come courtin' at e'en. 



118 THE COURTIN TIME. 

Courtin' at e'en — courtin' at e'en — 
An the dew brings the lads who come courtin at e'en ! 

When the men-folk are crackin' o' owsen an land, 
An' the kimmers at spinnin' are tryin' their hand, 
I see at the window the face o' a frien', 
An' I ken that my joe 's come a-courtin' at e'en. 

A-courtin' at e'en — a-courtin' at e'en — 
An' I ken that my joe 's come a-courtin' at e'en ! 

I never let on, but I cannily gang 
To the door to my laddie, an' a' may think lang ; 
An' the warm simmer gale may blaw snelly an' keen 
Ere I leave the braw lad who comes courtin' at e'en. 

Courtin' at e'en — courtin' at e'en — 
Ere I leave the braw lad who comes courtin' at e'en ! 

Awa 'mang the stacks wi' my dearie I gae ; 
An' we dern oursel's down 'mang the fresh aiten strae — 
There we cozilie crack, while thegither we lean ; 
An' blithe is the time o' our courtin' at e'en — 

Courtin' at e'en — courtin' at e'en — 
An blithe is the time o' our courtin' at e'en ! 

Neist mornin' they meet me wi' floutin' an' jeers, 
An' about my braw wooer ilk ane o' them speers ; 
But for floutin' an' scornin' I carena, I ween, 
Compared wi' the lad who comes courtin' at e'en. 

Courtin' at e'en — courtin' at e'en — 
Compared wi' the lad who comes courtin' at e'en ! 



THE BONNIE HIELAND HILLS. 119 



THE BONNIE HIELAND HILLS. 

O ! the bonnie Hieland hills, 
O ! the bonnie Hieland hills, — 
The bonnie hills o' Scotland O ! 
The bonnie Hieland hills. 

There are lands on the earth where the vine ever blooms — 
Where the air that is breathed the sweet orange perfumes ; 
But mair dear is the blast the lane shepherd that chills, 
As it wantons alang o'er our ain Hieland hills. 
Chorus — O ! the bonnie Hieland hills. 

There are rich gowden lands wi' their skies ever fair ; 
But o' riches or beauty we make na our care ; 
Wherever we wander ae vision aye fills 
Our hearts to the burstin — our ain Hieland hills. 
Chorus — ! the bonnie Hieland hills. 

In our lone and deep valleys fair maidens there are, 
Though born in the midst o' the elements' war ; 
O ! sweet are the damsels that sing by our rills, 
As they dash to the sea frae our ain Hieland hills. 
Chorus — ! the bonny Hieland hills. 

On the moss-cover'd rock, wi* their broadswords in hand, 
To fight for fair freedom their sons ever stand ; 
A. storm-nurs'd bold spirit ilk warm bosom fills, 
That guards frae a' danger our ain Hieland hills. 



1 20 THE THISTLE. 

Chorus— ! the bonnie Hieland hills, 
O ! the bonnie Hieland hills, — 
The bonnie hills o' Scotland O ! 
The bonnie Hieland hills. 



THE THISTLE. 

By the Thistle we'll stand while there's blood in our veins : 
We carena who loses — we carena who gains ; 
For our side is ta'en ; an', while reason remains, 
We'll stand by the auld Scottish Thistle. 
Chorus — Put your foot to mine, 

Heart and hand let us join 
To stand by the auld Scottish Thistle. 

May it flourish ! its hame is our dear native land ; 
While there's life in ilk heart — while there's strength 

in ilk hand, 
Be 't by night or by day — be 't by sea or by land, 
Well stand by the auld Scottish Thistle. 

While we hallow the graves o' the free an' the brave — 

While the land hath a stream, while the sea hath a wave — 

While the bold are the free, while the coward's a slave — 

We'll stand by the auld Scottish Thistle. 

For the love of the maiden, the praise of the free — 
For the blessings that father an' mother will gi'e — 
For the hames that are dear baith to thee and to me, 
We '11 stand by the auld Scottish Thistle. 



THE HEATHER OF SCOTLAND. 121 

By Freedom ! our aith — be 't in peace or in war — 
We '11 mak' Honour an Scotland our bright guiding-star ; 
An' till valleys lie low, where our wild mountains are, 
We '11 stand by the auld Scottish Thistle. 
Chorus — Put your foot to mine, 

Heart and hand let us join 
To stand by the auld Scottish Thistle. 



THE HEATHER OF SCOTLAND. 

The heather, the heather 
The bonnie brown heather— 
The heather, the heather 
Of Scotland O ! 

? Tis thy badge an' thy token, thou gem o' the North — 
'Tis wide-spread as the fame of thy honour and worth : 
It is welcomed wherever its red blossoms blow 
As the bonnie brown heather of Scotland O ! 

Chorus — The heather, the heather, &c. 

The dark hair of our maidens it decks on our hills, 
And the place of a plume in the bonnet it fills : 
On the mountain it blooms and in valleys below ; 
O ! the bonnie brown heather of Scotland O ! 

Chorus — The heather, the heather, &c. 

'Tis the best pledge o* friendship, of true love and truth ; 
'Tis the plant of our hames— -of the land of our youth. 



122 THE HEATHER OF SCOTLAND. 

By our door-steps and hamesteads it sweetly doth grow; 
O ! the bonnie brown heather of Scotland ! 

Chorus — The heather, the heather, &c. 

For freedom, langsyne, when our forefathers fought — 
When with blood frae their bold hearts our birthright 

they bought — 
They fell free and unconquered, fronting the foe 
On the bonnie brown heather of Scotland O ! 

Chorus — The heather, the heather, &c. 

The fields of renown where our warriors have bled — 
The cairns on our hills where our chieftains are laid — 
Ilka scene that is dear to our hearts bright doth glow 
Wi' the bonnie brown heather of Scotland ! 

Chorus — The heather, the heather, &c. 

Let us stand, and, uncover'd, our hands let us join, 
Vowing high-hearted manhood we never will tyne ; 
But will strive to bring honour wherever we go 
To the bonnie brown heather of Scotland O ! 

Chorus — The heather, the heather, 

The bonnie brown heather — 
The heather, the heather 
Of Scotland ! 



i 



THE BAGPIPES. 1 23 



THE BAGPIPES. 



The bagpipe's wild music comes o'er the braid lea, 
An' the thoughts o' langsyne it is briugin' to me, 
When the warrior's foot on the heather was placed — 
When his heart an' his hand for the combat were braced — ■ 
When the free by the brave to the battle were led, 
An' when ilka man's hand had to keep his ain head : — 
Thae auld-warld fancies my heart winna tyne, 
Of the bold an' the true o' the days o' langsyne. 

When the bairn was born the bagpipes were brought ; 
The first sound in its ears was their bauld-speakin' note ; 
An' when forth came the Tartan in battle array, 
The proud voice o' war aye was leading the way : 
And when dead with his fathers the warrior was laid, 
Aboon his low dwelling the coronach was play'd. 
In weal, as in woe, — amid tears, amid wine, 
The bagpipes aye moved the bold hearts o' langsyne, 

Alang the hill-side comes the dear pibroch's sound, 
And auld Scottish thoughts from my heart are unwound : 
The days o' the past are around me again — 
The hall of the chieftain — the field of the slain — 
The men of the plaid and the bonnet sae blue, 
Who by Scotland, my country, stood leally an' true. 
O ! the land o' the bagpipes and thistle is mine, 
Wi' its auld rousing thoughts of the days o' langsyne ! 



1 24 REGRETS. 



FADING AWAY. 

A starn shone out deep in the sky, 
Blinkin sae cheery cheerily : 
It was seen an loved by mony an eye — 
That brightest speck in the Heavens high : 
But in darkness sad the starn did die : 
My sang sings dreary drearily. 

A flowrie grew in yonder wood, 

Bloomin' sae cheery cheerily ; 
An' the light o' day did round it flood, 
Till brightest amang the bright it stood : 
But it faded an wither d leaf an bud : 
My sang sings dreary drearily. 

A bonnie maiden loved me true, 

An' time gaed cheery cheerily ; 

Her lip was red an her een were blue, 

A warm leal heart she had, I trow ; 

But alake I she's dead, the maid I lo'e : 
My sang sings dreary drearily. 



REGRETS. 



Tak' aff, tak' aff this silken garb, 
An bring to me a Hieland plaid : 

Nae bed was e'er sae saft an' sweet 
As ane wi' it an' heather made. 



REGRETS. 125 

Tak' aff this gowd-encircled thing, 

An' bring to me a bonnet blue, 
To mind me o* the Hieland hills 

That I ha'e left for ever now* 

Tak', tak' awa' this gaudy flower, 

An bring to me a sprig o' heather, 
Like those langsyne among the hills 

Of home and youth, I aft did gather. 
For a' your luscious Indian fruit 

The ripe blaeberry bring to me : 
To be in braes where black they hing 

There's nought on earth I wadna' gi'e. 

! take away this tinsel wealth, 

That wiled me frae my Hieland hame ; 

1 cannot bear its glitter now,— 
For it I've played a losing game. 

O ! bring me back my youthfu' heart — 

The eye and hand of long ago — 
Take a* I have, but place me syne 

Afar where Hieland waters flow ! 

! for an hour of youth and hope — 
Ae moment of my youthfu' years 

Upon the hills of Scotland dear, 
When I had neither cares nor fears. 

1 mauna sigh, I mauna mane — 
Before my fate I laigh maun bow,-— 

Bring wealth — bring wine — till I forget 
The time when round me heather grew ! 



1 26 THE HIELAND PLAID. 



THE HIELAND PLAID. 

! leeze me on the Hieland plaid,— 
The tartan plaidie, tartan plaidie ! 

The very sight o't makes me glad — 
The bonnie tartan plaidie ! 

It minds me o' the happy days, 
When blithe I herdit on the braes, 
O' love an' a' its gladsome ways : 

Be blessin's on the plaidie ! 
Chorus — O ! leeze me on the Hieland plaid, &c. 

My Sandie was the triggest lad 
That ever made a lassie glad ; 
And O ! a handsome look he had 

When he put on his plaidie. 
Chorus — ! leeze me on the Hieland plaid, &c. 

I mind it as I mind yestreen, 

When courtm he would come at e'en : 

We sat upo' the trystin green 

Beneath his tartan plaidie. 
Chorus — ! leeze me on the Hieland plaid, &c. 

At fairs and preachin's, far and near, 
Baith Sandy an' his joe were there ; 
An as we hame at night did wear, 

He row'd me in his plaidie. 
Chorus — O ! leeze me on the Hieland plaid, &c. 



WHAT SHALL I DO ? 121 

For monie a year, at hame, a-field, 
The plaidie was his cosie bield : 
O ! vow, he was a sonsie chield 

When he gat on his plaidie. 
Chorus — O ! leeze me on the Hieland plaid, &c. 

When winter nights were lang an' cauld, 
Upo' the hill he watch'd the fauld, 
Frae e'en to morn sae crouse an' bauld, 
Weel happit in his plaidie ! 
Chorus — ! leeze me on the Hieland plaid, &c. 

When Sandie gaed as I am gaun — 
When frae our fireside he was ta'en — 
They laid him low aneath the stane 

Row'd in his tartan plaidie. 
Chorus — O ! leeze me on the Hieland plaid,— 
The tartan plaidie, tartan plaidie ! 
The very sight o't makes me glad— 
The bonnie tartan plaidie ! 



WHAT SHALL I DO? 

I'm either gaun daft, or I'm donnert wi' drink, 
My head is a' singin' — I'm deein', I think : — 
Whene'er I see Mysie, I grane and I grue ; 
I maybe ha'e fa'en in love ! — What shall I do ? 



1 28 THE WOOING. 

That guess is the right ane, as sure as a gun ; 
But frae the deep sea to the de'il I ha'e run. 
There are cures for a fever, but nane for me now : 
To a lassie I canna speak ! — What shall I do ? 

Will I tell her I've plenty o' maut, meal, and milk— 
A stockin o' guineas — a gown-breed o' silk- 
That my auld mither's plaid is as gude as when new — 
An the hale I will gi'e her ? — O ! what shall I do ? 

It's weel kent I ne'er had a gift o* the gab, 

An' my thoughts now ha'e gane, like a sair ravell'd wab : 

If I try to speak saftly, I'll look unco blue, 

An stoiter an stammer ! — O ! what shall I do ? 

What say ye ? Gae praise her saft cheek an' blue eeu, 
An' swear that their like on the earth ne'er was seen, 
An' daut her fii kindly ? — Na ! I canna woo, 
Sae needna be tryin ! — ! what shall I do ? 

Gae, gar the auld wives o' the clachan come ben- 
Can nae skilly body gi'e cures for sic pain ? 
If I die, the fan' t, Mysie, will lie upon you — 
The de'il tak' the womenkind ! — What shall I do ? 



THE WOOING. 

Though overly proud, she was bonnie an young, 
And, in spite o' her jeers an' her scornin, 



THE WOOING. 129 

I lo'ed her as weel, or mair than mysel' ; 

An I follow'd her e'enm* an mornin'. 
She trysted me ance, an' she trysted me twice, 

But — the limmer ! — she never came near me ; 
And, when I complain d o't, she leuch, while she speer'd, 

Was I fear'd that the bogles would steer me ? 

I gaed to the market to meet wi' my joe, 

An' to buy her back-burdens o' fairin', 
My lang-hoarded shillin's and saxpences took ; 

For I yow'd that I woudna be sparin'. 
She pouch'd a* my sweeties, my apples an rings, 

Till awa' was ilk lang-treasured shilling 
Then says I, " Well go hame." — " Losh, Geordie, gae 
way 

Says she, " for your supper is spoilin' ! " 

Wi* puir Geordie's fairings, sae fine, in her pouch, 

She gaed an drew up wi' anither ; 
The chield threw his arms about her sweet neck, 

An awa hame they cleekit thegither. 
Wi* a heart sad an' sair I follow'd the twa — 

At her auld father's door saw them partin — 
Syne lifted the sneck, an crap after my joe, 

Wi' a waefu-like look, I am certain ! 

I whispered her name, an I clinkit me down 

In the dark, on the settle, aside her, 
An clew at my head — I was sairly tongue-tied ; 

For I hadna the smeddum to chide her. 



130 THE WOOING. 

I now an' then mumbled a short word or twa — 

A saft word or twa to my dearie ; 
But she gapit an' gauntit, sae aft an' sae lang, 

An' she said she o' courtin' was weary ! 

J raise to gae hame ; but the deil, for my sins, 

O'er the floor gart me stoiter an stammer, 
Till the pans made a noise, as the tinker had been 

A-smashin' them a* wi' his hammer. 
At the clatter, up startit the waukrife auld wife, — 

Her claes she put on in a hurry ; 
Says she, " There s a loon 'yont the hallan wi* Meg, 

An' the tangs in his harns I will bury !'' 

The flytiu* auld rudas cam but wi' a bang ; 

An* my bosom was in a sad swither ; 
An' maist I would greed to forgotten my Meg, 

If I had got but quit o' her mither. 
The wife an* the tangs were ahint me, I trow ; 

An' the window was hie, — but I jump it ; 
An up to the neck in a deep midden-hole, 

Like a trout in a bucket, I plumpit ! 

Baith mither an' dochter glower'd out on the fun, 

An' the young gilpie Maggie was laughin' ; 
The auld ane skreigh'd out wi' a terrible yowl, 

" Hey, lad ! ye are row'd in a rauchan." 
My face it was red, an my heart it was sair, 

While my fause love my sorrow was mockin' ; 
And an uncanny something raise up in my throat, 

Till I thought that I surely was choakin'. 



THE MARRIED MAN S LAMENT. 181 

I ran to tlie burn, an' to drown me I vow'd, 

For my heart wi' my fause love was breakin ; 
But the banks were sae high, and the water sae deep 5 

That the sight o't wi* fear set me quakin ! 
Says I, Why despair ? Sae comfort I took : — 

A sweetheart ! I'll soon get anither : 
Sae hamewith I toddled, an endit it a'— 

For I told my mischance to my mither ! 



THE LAMENT OF BENEDICK THE MARRIED 
MAN. 

I ance was a wanter, as happy 's a bee : — 

I meddled wi' nane, and nane meddled wi* me. 

I whiles had a crack o'er a cog o' gude yill — 

Whiles a bicker o' swats — whiles a heart-heezing gill ; 

And 1 aye had a groat if I hadna a pound,— 

On the earth there were nane meikle happier found : 

But my auld mither died in the year aughty-nine, 

An' I ne'er ha'e had peace in the warld sinsyne. 

Fu' sound may she sleep ! — a douce woman was she, 
Wi' her wheel, an her pipe, an her cuppie o* tea. 
My ingle she keepit as neat as a preen, 
And she never speer d questions, as, " Where ha'e ye 

been ? " 
Or, " What were ye doin ?" an' " Wha were ye wi' V — 
We were happy thegither, my mither an' me : 



132 THE MARRIED MAN'S LAMENT. 

But the puir bodie died in the year aughty-nine, 
An I ne'er ha'e had peace in the warld sinsyne. 

When my mither was gane, for a while I was wae ; 

But a young chap was I, an' a wife I maun ha'e. 

A wife soon I gat, an I aye ha'e her yet, 

An' folk think thegither we unco weel fit : 

But my ain mind ha'e I, though I mauna speak o't, 

For mair than her gallop I like my ain trot. 

O ! my auld mither died in the year aughty-nine, 

An' I ne'er ha'e had peace in the warld sinsyne. 

If I wi' a cronie be takin' a drap, 
Shell yaumer, an' ca' me an auld drucken chap. 
If an hour I bide out, loud she greets an' she yowls, 
An bans a' gude fellows, baith bodies an' souls : 
And then sic a care she has o' her gudeman ! 
Ye would think I were doited — I canna but ban ! 
O ! my auld mither died in the year aughty-nine, 
An I ne'er ha'e had peace in the warld sinsyne. 

Our young gilpie dochters are lookin for men. 
An I'll be a grandsire or ever I ken : 
Our laddies are tkinkin' o' rulin' the roast— 
Their father, auld bodie, 's as deaf as a post ! 
But he sees their upsettin', sae crouse an' sae bauld :- 
O ! why did I marry, an wherefore grow auld ? 
My mither ! ye died in the year aughty-nine, 
An* I ne'er ha'e had peace in the warld sinsyne ! 



THERES NEVER AN END o' HER FLYTIN' AN' DIN. 133 



THERE'S NEVER AN END 0' HER FLYTIN' 
AN' DIN. 

There's joy to the lave, but there's sadness to me ; 
For my gudewife an' I can do a thing but 'gree : 
In but-house an' ben-house, baith outby an' in, 
There's never an end o' her flytin' and din. 

She's girnin' at e'enin' — she's girnin' at morn — 
A' hours o' the day in my flesh she's a thorn : 
At us baith a' the neighbour- folk canna but grin : 
There's never an end o' her flytin' an' din. 

She scolds at the lasses, she skelps at the bairns ; 
An' the chairs an' the creep ies she flings them in cairns, 
I'm joyfu' when aff frae the house I can rin : 
There's never an end o' her flytin' an' din. 

When I bid her speak laigher, fu' scornfu' she sneers ; 
Syne she skreighs like a goslin' till a' body hears ; 
Then I maun sing sma', just to keep a hale skin : 
There's never an end o' her flytin' and din. 

Ance deaved to the heart by her ill-scrapit tongue, 
To quiet her I tried wi' a gude hazel rung : — 
Wi' the tangs she repaid me, and thought it nae sin : 
There's never an end o' her flytin' an' din. 



134 a maiden's meditations. 

There's ae thing I ken, an that canna be twa — 
I wish frae this world she ance were awa' ; 
An' I trust, if ayont to the ill place she win, 
They'll be able to bear wi' her flytin' an din. 

To the wa' the door rattles — that's her com in' ben ; 
An* I maun gi'e o'er or the Luckie would ken. 
Gude save us ! she's clearin' her throat to begin : 
The Lord keep ye a' frae sic flytin' an' din ! 



A MAIDEN'S MEDITATIONS. 

Nae sweetheart ha'e I, 

Yet I'm no that ill-faur'd : 
But there's ower monie lasses, 

An' wooers are scaur'd. 
This night I the hale 

0' my tocher would gi'e 
If a' ither bodie 

Were married but me. 

Syne I would get plenty 

About me to speer — 
Folk wou'dna be fashious 

'Bout beauty or gear. 
Hearts broken in dozens 

Around I would see, 
If a' ither bodie 

Were married but me. 



a maiden's meditations. 135 

Ae lover would ha'e 

A* my errands to rin ; 
Anither should tend me 

Baith outby an' in ; 
And to keep me gude-humour'd 

Would tak twa or three, 
If a' ither bodie 

Were married but me. 

Fond wooers in dozens 

Where I ha'ena ane, 
An' worshippin hearts 

Where I'm langin alane— 
Frae mornm to e'enin' 

How bless' d would I be, 
If a' ither bodie 

Were married but me ? 

A daft dream was yon — 

It has faded awa : 
Nae bodie in passin' 

E'er gi'es rue a ca' : 
Nae sweetheart adorin 

I ever shall see, 
Till a ither bodie 

Be married but me ! 



13G MY MINNIE MAUNA KEN. 



MY MINNIE MAUNA KEN. 

Come sleely up the burnie's side 

When starnies ope their een ; 
An' quietly through the winnock keek, 

But say to nane, Gude-e'en ! 
An' creep alang ahint the dyke, 

Where nane can hear or see ; 
For O ! my minnie mauna ken 

That ye come courtin me ! 

Ye'll wait na lang till out I slip ; 

Syne gi'e a hoast or twa, 
An' soon I'll sittin be wi' you 

Ahint the kailyard- wa' ! 
But there ye mauna keep me lang, 

Wi' fleechin' words sae slee ; 
For O ! my minnie mauna ken 

That ye come courtin' me ! 

At kirk or market when we meet, 

If I should pass ye by, 
An' seem to think ye far ower laigh 

To catch a maiden's eye : 
Ne'er gloom at me as ance ye did, 

Nor think I lightly thee ; 
For O ! my minnie mauna ken 

That ye come courtin me ! 



MY MINNIE MAUNA KEN. 1ST 

My minnie brags o' a' her lands, 

Her mailins, and her gear : 
My brithers o' their sister fair 

Are boastin' late an' air ; 
And kent they who that sister loved, 

Their hate would follow thee ; 
And sae my minnie mauna ken 

That ye come courtin me ! 

It may be good to live in wealth — 

To walk in claithing braw ; 
But O ! a leal young heart's first love 

Is better than it a' : 
Than a', ae glint o' love frae thee 

Is dearer to my e'e ; 
But ! my minnie mauna ken 

That ye come courtin me ! 

The time is comin' round about 

"When I will care for nane ; 
But take the laddie whom I love — 

I never loved but ane. 
A year or two will soon gang by, 

An syne I'll follow thee, 
Although my minnie mauna ken 

That ye come courtin' me. 

Come sleely up the burnie's side 

When starnies ope their een, 
An' quietly through the winnock keek 

But say to nane, Gude-e'en I 



138 KATE CARNEGIE. 

An' creep alang ahint the dyke, 
Where nane can hear or see ; 

For O ! my minnie mauna ken 
That ye come courtin' me ! 



KATE CARNEGIE. 

SONG. 

My life is a burden — nae pleasure ha'e I ; 

I'm grainin', baith e'enin' an' mornin\ 
'Cause why? I'm in love, and I darena e'en try, 

For fear o' her floutin' an' scornin'. 
She 's a jewel of a kimmer — as straight as an ash ; 

But I fear I maun jump o'er a craigie ; 
For in spite o' my love, an' in spite o' my cash, 

I'm nae favourite wi' Katie Carnegie ! 

Gudewife ! bring a bicker, I'll slocken my drouth — 

That ale was na spoilt i' the brewin. 
Heartbroken and wae in the hours o' my youth — 

Love — true love— has been my undoin' ! 
And why should Kate care for a gomach like me ? 

I've glour'd at her aft wi' a gleg e'e, 
But though I'm in love — though I fear I maun dee — - 

I ne'er spoke o't to Katie Carnegie. 

Gi'e's a waucht o' the ale — she's the queen o' the Strath- 

And what is to hinder me try in' ? 
The hard-hearted kimmer ! she cou'dna weel laugh 

An jeer at a man who is dyin' ! 



THE MAID I DAURNA NAME. 139 

Just ae ither stoup ! — what the deil makes me sad ? 

Gae, laddie, and saddle my naigie ; 
And if ony ane speer where I'm till on the yaud, 

I'm awa' to court Katie Carnegie ! 



THE MAID I DAURNA NAME. 

I wish I were a hinny-bee, 

That I awa' might sing, — 
Upo' the buds o' a bonnie bower, 

When the e'enin' fa's, to hing, 
And be bless'd wi' ae look o' a bonnie face 

Like the sun-glint on the fell — 
The face o' ane — a precious ane — 

Whase name I daurna tell ! 

I wish I were a breathin' wind, 

That I might pree her mou', 
An' wander blessed by her side, 

The woods an' valleys through ; 
An' clasp her waist sae jimpy sma', 

Where grows the muirland bell ; 
An' pass ae hour o' love wi' her 

Whase name I daurna tell. 

The laverock loves the simmer lift — 
The corncraik clover green — 

An' the mither loves her bairnie's face, 
Where its father's smile is seen ; 



1 40 THE PACKMAN. 

The lintie loves the hawthorn hedge — 
The blackbird lo'es the dell — ■ 

But mair than a' I lo'e the maid 
Whase name I daurna tell. 

The misty mornin often brings 

A sunny afternoon ; 
An' March, wi' hands sae sleety cauld, 

Leads gladsome May an June : 
An maybe yet, or a* be done, 

I'll happy be mysel', 
When she is mine — the precious ane — 

"Whase name I daurna tell. 



THE PACKMAN. 

The fire we sat round on a cauld winter night — 

MyseF an' my dochters were spinnin' — 
When in came the pedlar, wi' ellwand in hand, 

And the sweat frae the bodie was rinnm. 
Wi' beck an' wi* bow, and wi' " Goodness be here ! " 

He trampit in o'er to the ingle ; 
Syne open'd his pack fu' o' claes o' the best — 

Wi' the sight o't my lugs they play'd tingle ! 

Fu o' jokin' an' cracks was the slee, pawky loon — 
Weel kent he how braw things becam' folk ; 

An' my dochters he praised till we cou'dna but buy ; 
For he ca'd a' our neighbours but sham folk* 



THE BONNIE ROWAN BUSH. 141 

The deil break his shanks ! he had plenty o' news, 
And he clatter'd, and coost me wi' glamour. 

Till quarters I promised to gi'e for a night. 
And to make our bien but-house his chaumer. 

The morn I got up, as a gudewife should do, — • 

To packmen there 's naething to lippen, — 
And soon followed after me Chirsty and Meg, 

But Jean came na after them skippin'. 
Where is she ? why waits she ? my youngest and best — 

My ain Jean, my bonnie wee burdie — 
Run awa ? The light limmer — the deil break his banes— 

Wi' the oily-tongued chapman, Tarn Purdie ! 



THE BONNIE ROWAN BUSH. 

The bonnie rowan bush 

In yon lane glen — 
Where the burnie clear doth gush 

In yon lane glen ; 
My head is white and an Id, 
An my bluid is thin and cauld, — 
But I lo'e the bonnie rowan bush 

In yon lane glen. 

My Jeanie first I met 

In yon lane glen — 
When the grass wi' dew was wet 

In yon lane glen ; 



142 THE BONNIE ROWAN BUSH. 

The moon was shinm sweet, 
An our hearts wi' love did beat, — 
By the bonnie, bonnie rowan bush 
In yon lane glen — 

! she promised to be mine 
In yon lane glen ; 

Her heart she did resign 
In yon lane glen : 

An' monie a happy day 

Did o'er us pass away, 

Beside the bonnie rowan bush 
In yon lane glen. 

Sax bonnie bairns had we 
In yon lane glen — 
Lads an lasses young an spree 

In yon lane glen ; 
An a blither family 
Than ours there cou'dna be, 
Beside the bonnie rowan bush 
In yon lane glen. 

Now my auld wife 's gane awa' 
Frae yon lane glen ; 

An' though simmer sweet doth fa' 
On yon lane glen, 

To me its beauty 's gane, 

For alake ! I sit alane, 

Beside the bonnie rowan bush 
In yon lane glen. 



THE AULD BEGGAR MAN. 143 



THE AULD BEGGAR MAN. 

The Auld Beggar Man is a hearty auld cock ; — 
Wi' his sair-tatterd rags an his meikle meal-pock, 
He lives like a king in the midst o* the Ian, — 
He's a slee pawkie bodie the Auld Beggar Man. 

He has a white pow and a fresh ruddy cheek, 
For there *s Sabbath to him ilka day o' the week ; 
An' he daunders aye onward the best way he can : 
He's a cantie bit carle the Auld Beggar Man. 

The gudewife sets his chair by the clear ingle-side, 
Where his feet may grow warm an his claes may be dried ; 
Syne the hale kintra's clashes he screeds them aff han' : 
He's a gash, gabbin' birkie, the Auld Beggar Man. 

Wi' the gudeman he cracks about cattle an' corn, — 
Whether this rig or that ane the best crap has borne ; 
How aits up ha'e risen an' owsen ha'e fa'n : 
Like a beuk he can argue, the Auld Beggar Man. 

The bairnies crowd round him his stories to hear, 
While maistly the wee things are swarfin' wi' fear ; 
An' he tells them how witches wi' Auld Clootie ban, 
Till they creep to the knee o' the Auld Beggar Man. 

" He's ane o' our ain folk," the lasses aye say, 
When their wooers drap in at the close o* the day ; 



144 YE WINNA LET ME BE. 

Sae he hears them mak' up ilka lovin bit plan, — 
He's an auld-farrant bodie, the Auld Beggar Man. 

When the supper is done, an the grace has been said, 
'Mang the strae in the barn is the auld bodie's bed ; 
There he sleeps like a tap till the brak' o' the dawn, — ■ 
He's hale at the heart yet, the Auld Beggar Man. 

Wi' his staff in his hand, and his pock on his back, 
He stoiters through life on a rough staney track ; 
His days whiles are dowie, but sin' they began 
He has trusted in Heaven, the Auld Beggar Man. 



YE WINNA LET ME BE. 

Thae een o' yours are bonnie blue, 

An O ! they sparkle sae 
That I maun look, an I maun love, 

Until my heart grow wae. 
They jewels seem o' meikle price, 

Aneath the dark e'ebree ; 
Ilk glance frae them gangs through my heart,- 

O ! they winna let me be. 

Thae lips o' yours are cherries twa; 

But floutin' words they speak ; 
An' ahint the door o' cauld disdain 

My heart I canna' steek. 



THE BANKS OF TAY. 145 

Your bonnie een an' your jeerin' words 

Are ever grievin' me : 
Ye cuttie quean ! it's an awfu' thing 

That ye winna let me be. 

Whene'er I sleep I dream o' thee, 

An' o' thy bonnie face ; 
I think nae then o' your scornfu' ways, . 

Ye little scant-o'-grace ! 
To break a truthfu' heart like mine 

Is the height o' crueltie ; 
Ye've gi'en it monie a fearfu' stound, 

For ye winna let me be. 

But I ha'e gotten a wylie plan 

To haud ye out o' ill : 
The holy priest — ye needna laugh ; 

Your mirth I wot he'll spill : 
He'll say the fearsome words, that one 

Will make o' you an' me ; 
An' then you'll plague your bonnie sel' 

If ye winna let me be ! 



THE BANKS OF TAY. 

The ship is on its seaward path, 
An' frae the shore the breezes blaw : 

Now Scotland's cliffs sae dear to me 
Aneath the wavin waters fa'* 



1 4G THE BANKS OF T AY. 

My hame is growin' far awa' — 
It lies aneath yon hill-tap gray — 

Yon last-seen spot o' Scotland's soil 
That rises by the Banks of Tay. 

Fareweel, ye mossy fountains wild ! 

Where yon fair stream doth softly rin : 
To ilka wildwood-shaded pool 

To ilka tumblin roarin linn — 
To ilka burnie that doth win 

Through heathery muirs its silent way- 
I bid fareweel ; for now my hame 

Is biggit far frae bonnie Tay. 

Fareweel, ye hames o' pure delight, 

That I ha'e lo'ed sae weel and lang ! 
Ye simmer birdies ! ye maun sing 

To others now your cheering sang ! 
Fareweel, ye holms, where lovers gang 

Upon the peaceful Sabbath-day : 
In youth I lov'd — in age 111 mind 

The green an' bonnie Banks of Tay. 

Be blessin's on ilk cot an' ha' 

That by thy braes o' hazel rise ; 
Be a' thing bonnie where thou rins, 

An' a' thing happy 'neath thy skies. 
Though far frae thee my boatie flies, 

The friends I love beside thee stray : 
My heart fu' dead an' cauld will be 

Ere I forget the Banks of Tay. 



THE LASS OF TURRIT HA 9 . 147 

The streams are wide where I am gaun, 

An' on they row through boundless woods ; 
But dearer is thy Hieland wave 

Than yonder wild and foreign floods. 
Thy haughs sae green — the simmer clouds 

That o'er thy shelter' d hamlets stray — 
I'll mind for Love an' Friendship's sake : 

Fareweel, ye bonnie Banks of Tay. 



THE LASS OF TURRIT HA'. 

Amang the hills, the rocky hills, 

Where whirrs the moorcock, waves the heather, 
Ae bonnie morn, in lightsome June, 

I wi' a lassie did foregather. 
Her naked feet, amang the grass, 

Seem'd dancm snaw- white lambies twa. 
As she gaed singin' through the glen — ■ 

The bonnie lass of Turrit Ha' ! 

I stood upon an auld gray stane, 

An' follow' d her wi' straining e'e, 
As bairnies look on fallm starns 

That o'er the lift glint silentlie. 
Her sang, her bonnie mornin' sang, 

Upon my heart did thrilling fa' ; 
A thing of light and love was she, 

The bonnie lass of Turrit Ha' I 



148 THE LASS OF TURRIT HA*. 

I met her on the Sabbath-day, 

When winds amang the woods were lown — 
When o'er the muir o' gorse an' broom 

Came sweet the plaintive chanted tune. 
And monie a bonnie quean was there ; 

But she was fairest o' them a' — 
The bonniest tree within the wood — 

The bonnie lass of Turrit Ha* ! 

An' when they sang the holy Psalm, 

Her voice was sweetest, dearest there — 
'Mang a' that gaed to God aboon, 

Hers was the purest, holiest prayer ! 
I thought the light o' day was gane 

When she ayont the kirkyard wa, 
By yon burn-brae gaed wanderin hame — 

The bonnie lass of Turrit Ha' ! 

A* things in earth an Heaven aboon 

Ha'e something worthy to be loved ; 
But mair than a' I met afore. 

That lassie's smile my bosom moved. 
The birdie lo'es the summer bush, 

The maukin' lo'es the greenwood-shaw ; 
But nane can tell how weel I lo'ed 

The bonnie lass of Turrit Ha' ! 

The summer bud o' Turrit Glen, 
Alas ! aneath the mools is laid ; 

The winds that waved her raven hair 
Are cauldly whistlin' o'er her bed : 



MARY HAMILTON. 149 



But, while yon silent moon doth shine- 
Sae lang as I ha'e breath to draw — 

I'll mind the gem o' youth an love — 
The bonnie lass of Turrit Ha ! 



MARY HAMILTON. 

As dreamm in yon wood I lay, 

A spirit came before me there, — 
Immortal seem'd its holy form, 

Frae Heaven sent, it was sae fair. 
Its peacefu presence seem'd to bring 

Deep joy upon yon forest lone : 
But aye I sigh'd, though fair eneuch, 

Your no like Mary Hamilton ! 

Her heart by Gudeness* sel* was made- 

Her laugh is like an angel's voice — 
Her sang o' sweetness lightsomely 

Gars nature in her joy rejoice ! 
Her een are starns o' living love, 

Whilk hallow a' they glint upon,-— 
The wale o' precious womankind 

Is bonnie Mary Hamilton ! 

When Life's rude storms are ragm hie- 
An' Poverty sits by my door — 

When Wae is twinin' at my heart— 
An* Envy counts my failins o'er — . 



150 MARY HAMILTON. 

I'm sad eneuch ; but in a blink 
My grain in sorrow a' is gone, 

If ae kind glint on me fa' frae 
The e'e o* Mary Hamilton. 

'Mong lowly folk her hame is made ; — 

A puir mans bairn I wat is she ; 
But Love sits in her smeeky hame, 

An' kindly, kindly smiles to me. 
Like some sweet rose 'mang heather brown, 

Upon a barren mountain-throne, 
Is she within her fathers ha' — 

My bonnie Mary Hamilton ! 

Let a' wha think, if sic there be, 

That Love an' Ennocence are dreams — 
That woman's heart is fause an frail — 

That purest Gudeness aft but seems — 
That Maids are witches — we the fools 

They cast their cheatrie glamour on — 
Gae, look on her an' syne confess 

There's truth in Mary Hamilton ! 

I wish upo' that bosky glen 

The tearfu' e'enin' dew were come ; 
I wish yon sun were ower the hill — 

That gushin' burnie's waters dim ; 
I wish the wanderin' e'enin' wind 

Were whistlin' round the breckans lone — 
That I might live anither hour 

0' love wi' Mary Hamilton. 



JANET. 151 



JANET. 



I'll mak' a fire upo' the knowe, 
An' blaw it till it bleeze an' lowe ; 
Syne in't I'll ha'e ye brunt, I trow — ■ 
Ye lia'e be w itch' d me, Janet ! 

Your een in ilka starn I see — - 
The hale night lang I dream o' thee— 
The bonnie lintie on the lea, 
I liken to you, Janet ! 

When leaves are green, an' fresh an' fair — 
When blithe an' sunny is the air — 
I stroke my beard, and say they 're rare ; 
But naething like you, Janet ! 

'Twas but yestreen, as I gaed hame, 
The Minister said, " What is your name ?" 
My answer — 'deed I may think shame — 
Was, " Sir, my name is Janet !" 

Last Sabbath, as I sang the Psalm, 
I fell into an unco dwaum, 
An' naething frae my lips e'er cam' 
But " Janet ! Janet ! Janet !" 

I've fought, I've danced, an' drucken too ; 
But nane o' time are like to do ; 



152 TUE FALSE ONE. 

Sae I maun come an' speer at you, 

" What ails me, think ye, Janet?" 

I'll soon be either dead or daft, 
Sic drams o' love frae you I've quafTd ; 
Sae lay aside your woman-craft — 
Ha'e mercy on me, Janet ! 

An if ye winna, there's my loof, 
I'll gar the Provost lead a proof, 
An* pit ye 'neath the Tolbooth roof: 
Syne what will ye do, Janet ? 

I'll mak' a fire upo' the knowe, 
An' blaw it till it bleeze an lowe ; 
Syne in 't I'll ha'e ye brunt, I trow — 
Ye ha'e bewitch' d me, Janet ! 



THE FALSE ONE. 

They told me thou hadst faithless grown — 

That gowd had wiled thy love frae me ; 
But my fond heart was constant still, 

An' thought that false ye couldna be ; 
It thought that Truth and Constancy 

Within thy bosom dwellers were — 
My Love nae ill of thee could think : 

And art thou then sae fause an fair ? 



THE FALSE ONE. ] 53 

My weary feet ha'e wander d far, 

That I might gaze upon thy brow — 
That I might sit wi' thee again 

Where mountain-burnies onward row. 
An hath it come to this ? But now 

Ye pass'd me wi' a heedless air : 
An' can it be that I ha'e lo'ed 

A thing sae very fause an fair ? 

An' hast thou then forgot the time 

When bairn ies, we thegither ran 
Upon the wild blae-berrie braes, 

Where Summers breath the birks did fan ? — 
Hast thou forgot the lilies wan, 

Wi* which I aften deck'd your hair ? — 
An how I watck'd your infant sleep ? — 

And art thou then sae fause an' fair ? 

Your plighted vows are broken a' — 

The maiden- vows ye gave to me ; 
Ye ha'e forgot the hazel glen — 

Ye ha'e forgot the trystin' tree — 
Where, under Heaven's open e'e, 

Ye listen'd to my young heart's prayer. 
How could ye, lass, beguile me sae ? 

How could ye prove sae fause an' fair ? 

I see thee cast thy sun-like smiles 

O'er yon fond heart that doats on thine : — 

May Joy aye dwell wi' him an' thee, 
Though, lassie, thou hast broken mine. 



154 SUMMER WOOING. 

Yet, ere thy love I a' resign — 
The sight o' thee for evermair— 

"WT tearfu' e'e I speer if ane 
Can live sae very fause an fair ? 



SUMMER WOOING. 

The green broom was blooniin', — 

The daisy was seen 
Peerin' up to the sky 

Frae the flower-spangled green, — 
The burnie was loupin 

By bank an by brae, 
While alang by its margin 

A lassie did gae. 
She heard the wee birdies 

Sing high in the clouds, 
An' the downy wing'd breezes 

Creep through the green woods ; 
An' she saw the bright e'enin' sun 

Lighting the whole : — 
There was joy in the lassie's face — 

Peace in her soul ! 

She sat in the shade 

Of a sweet-scented briar, 

And the sounds of the wild wood 
Came saft on her ear ; 



SUMMER WOOING. 155 

While the flushes o' feelin 

Swept o'er her sweet face, 
As the clouds o'er the moon 

One another do chase. 
In the peace of the twilight 

Her soul did repose — 
Where green leaves were wavin' 

Her eyelids did close, 
She lay in that bower 

In her innocent sleep, 
And spirits around her 

Their vigils did keep. 

The butterfly breathed 

On her cheek for a flower, 
As a pure maiden blush 

Spoke the dream o' the hour. 
While the lassie was sleepin' 

A bauld youth came by,— - 
There was life in his footstep 

An love in his eye. 
He stood by the maiden 

Who lay in her dream, 
An heard her in slumber 

Laigh murmur his name. 
An idol she seemed 

Sae heavenly fair, 
And he an idolater 

Worshippin' there. 
He kiss'd her sweet lips, 

An' her warm cheek he press'd ; 



156 the prisoner's song. 

An' the lassie awoke 

On her leal lovers breast ! 

The e'enin was fa' in* 

On mountain an fell, 
The rush o' the stream 

Through the darkness did swell ; 
But the maid an' her true love 

Ne'er heeded the hour, 
As they sat in their bliss 

In that green briar bower. 
He tauld a' his love, 

While her tears fell like rain, — 
Their joy was sae joyfu 

It maistly was pain. 
They hamewith return'd 

Through the simmer mist gray, 
An twa hearts were happy 

For ever and aye ! 



THE PRISONER'S SONG. 

Were I a little simmer bird, 

Awa, on twitterin' wing, 
I far wad flee, 'mang wild-woods green, 

An blithely I would sing ; 
An* I wad sit by ilka flower, 

An' taste ilk drap o' dew — 



THE PRISONER'S SONG. 157 

A' wad be mine where light hath shone, — 
Green glens and waters blue, 

! I wad flit o'er heather'd hills. 

An sit by mountain streams— 
O ! I wad be where nightly yet 

I wander in my dreams — 
Pu'ing the bonnie mountain-flowers, 

An' listening to the sang 
? mountain-birds, — the mossy rocks 

An' hoary crags amang. 

The birds may sit where'er they list. 

Where'er they list may flee ; 
They are na barr'd, as I am now, 

Wi' wa's baith thick and hie. 
My heart is dead wi' weariness, — 

Here breezes never blaw ; 
An' tears, like those within my een, 

Are a' the dews that fa'. 

The simmer e'enin's settin' sun 

Into my dungeon throws 
Ae single ray, — a holy flower 

That, 'mid the darkness, grows : 
A joyfu' tale it tells to me 

O' freedom's happiness ; 
And, though the joy I cannot taste, 

I love it not the less. 

It tells me o' a gowany glen 
Afar, where it hath been — 



1,58 WE ARE BRETHREN a\ 

A deep, wild dell, amang the hills, 
A' spread wi' breckans green : — 

O' singin' birds an' simmer suns, 
An' winds, fii' gently swellin' ; — 

O' bonnie burns — fair Freedom's type- 
To me that ray is tellin\ 

It whispers what the free enjoy 

On mountain and in glen, — 
Things holy, fresh, and beautiful, 

That I maun never ken. — 
O ! stay a while, thou simmer ray, 

Nor leave me thus alane ; — 
O ! dim, an' dimmer, now it grows ; 

An' now — the light is gane ! 



WE ARE BRETHREN A'. 

A happy bit hame this auld world would be, 
If men, when they're here, could make shift to agree, 
An' ilk said to his neighbour, in cottage an ha,' 
" Come, gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a\" 

I ken na why ane wi' anither should fight, 
When to 'gree would make a' body cosie an right, 
When man meets wi* man, 'tis the best way ava, 
To say, " Gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a'." 



WE ARE BRETHREN A'. 159 

My coat is a coarse ane, an' yours may be fine, 
And I maun drink water while you may drink wine ; 
But we baith ha'e a leal heart, unspotted to shaw : 
Sae gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a'. 

The knave ye would scorn, the unfaithful' deride ; 
Ye would stand like a rock, wi' the truth on your side ; 
Sae would I, an nought else would I value a straw ; 
Then gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a\ 

Ye would scorn to do fausely by woman or man ; 
/ haud by the right aye, as weel as I can ; 
We are ane in our joys, our affections, an' a'; 
Come, gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a. 

Your mither has lo'ed you as mithers can lo'e ; 
An' mine has done for me what mithers can do ; 
We are ane, hie an' laigh, an we shouldna be twa : 
Sae gi'e me your hand — we are brethren a'. 

We love the same simmer day, sunny and fair ; 
Hame ! — Oh, how we love it, an a' that are there ! 
Frae the pure air o' Heaven the same life we draw — 
Come, gie me your hand — we are brethren a\ 

Frail, shakin' Auld Age, will soon come o'er us baith, 
An creepin alang at his back will be Death ; 
Syne into the same mither-yird we will fa' : 
Come, gie me your hand — we are brethren a\ 



160 STEADFASTNESS. 



STEADFASTNESS. 

Folk sillerless may ca' us, — 

We ha'e unco little gear ; 
Our wealth is gatherin' gey an* slow, — 

'Twill ne'er be great, I fear. 
But, though our lot be laigh eneuch, 

An' though our life be wae, 
We never yet ha'e fail'd a friend 

And never fear'd a fae ! 

Although our parritch-cap be sma', 

To him who needs it yet 
We'll spare a sup, an wi' the lave 

A blessin' we will get. 
We We fend it aye in days gane by — 

We'll fend through monie mae — 
An' never fail a trustin' friend 

An' never fear a fae ! 

Though some folk think that a' thing gude 
In palaces doth dwell — 

An' though the poor, to tempt an' vex, 
Ha'e mair than I may tell ; 

There 's ae thing yet — there 's twa things yet- 
To brag o', that we ha'e — 

We never, never fail'd a friend, 
An' never fear'd a fae ! 



THE HONEST AND TRUE. 161 



Folk shou'dna mind the ragged coat, 

Nor yet the horny han', — 
'Tis by the heart his breast doth hap 

That they should judge the man. 
Ye ken there are in cottages, 

Where poor folk plackless gae, 
True hearts that never fail'd a friend, 

An* never fear'd a fae ! 



THE HONEST AND TRUE. 

Your soldier is bloody, your statesman a knave ; 
Frae the true heart nae honour they ever shall have : 
Their glitter an' fauseness may gar our hearts grue ; 
But honour to him wha is honest and true ! 

Will we bow to the coof wha has naething but gear ? 
Or the fool whom a college has fitted wi' lear ? 
Na, troth ! we 11 gi'e honour where honour is due— 
To the Man wha has ever been honest and true ! 

We '11 ne'er speer if he come frae France, Holland, or 

Spain, 
Ere we p]edge manly friendship wi' him to maintain — 
Be he Mussulman, Christian, Pagan, or Jew, 
'Tis a' ane to us if he 's honest and true ! 

His skin may be black, or his skin may be white, — 
We carena a fig, if his bosom be right : 



Though his claes be iu rags, an the wind blawin through, 
We '11 honour the man wha is honest and true ! 

While the sun 's in the heavens, the stars in the sky, — 
Till the earth be a sea, till the ocean run dry, — 
We '11 honour but hirn to whom honour is due, 
The Man wha has ever been honest and true ! 



THE WORLD 'S FIT 0' SKAITH AND TOIL. 

The world's fu' o' skaith and toil — 
Its gruesome face doth seldom smile; 
But what care I how sad it be ? 
Its sadness shall never danton me ! 

An' men are fause an' women frail — 

An Friendship aft at need doth fail ; 

But, though the warst o't I may see, 

Their fauseness shall never danton me ! 

Life's dearest lights may fade awa', 
An' dour misfortunes down may fa'; 
But I will keep a spirit hie, — 
The warst o't shall never danton me ! 

O ! let me ha'e a leal true heart — 
Let honour never frae me part ; 
And, though in want, sae cauld, I dee, 
Even that shall never danton me ! 



THE SHEPHERDESS. 168 



THE SHEPHERDESS. 



To yon deep mountain glen my wee lambkins I'll ca', 
Where o'er the brown heather the saftest winds blaw ; 
And there, 'mang the broom bushes, blithely I'll sing, 
Till the crags on the hill-taps fu cheerily ring ! 

And then when I've herdit till fair eventide, 
I'll see a bit doggie come down the hill-side ; 
And soon 'neath the broom, where nae body can see, 
My dearie will share his gray plaidie wi' me ! 

He '11 ca' me his dear, and he '11 ca' me his pet — 
He '11 seek but ae kiss, — and he twa-three will get : 
How can I refuse them ? — my heart is sae fain 
When he dauts me and ca's me his dearest — his ain ! 

Wi' sour, unco looks, I awhile may him tease, 
And tell him that true love and falsehood are faes ; 
And syne, to repay him, a kiss I will gi'e, 
And a press o' the hand, and a glance o' the e'e ! 

IRin down the glen, burnie — rin saftly alang — 
Adown the glen, burnie, wi' you I'll no gang ; 
At gloaming I'll meet him, and cannily he 
Will guide to the fauld my wee lammies and me. 



164 BE STILL, BE STILL, THOU BEATING HEART. 



BE STILL, BE STILL, THOU BEATING HEART. 

A SONG. 

Be still, be still, thou beating heart, — 

Oh cease, ye tears, that fill my e'e : 
In warldly joys I ha'e nae part — 

Nae blithesome morning dawns for me. 
I once was glad as summer winds, 

When fondling 'mang the grass sae green ; 
But pleasure now hath left my breast — 

I am na like what I ha'e been. 

I once was loved, — I loved again 

The spreest lad in a' our glen ; 
I kent na then o' care or pain, 

Or burning brow, or tortured brain. 
I braided, then, my flowing hair, 

And had o' love and peace my fill ; 
Deep, deep I drank — but a* has gane — 

Oh, cease thy beating : — Heart be still ! 

Why should two hearts, together twined, 

Be sever' d by stern Fate's decree ? 
Why doth the brightest star of mind 

Oft turn its darkest cloud to be ? 
My Jamie left his native glen, 

My silken purse wi* gowd to fill ; 
But oh, he ne'er came back again — 

Oh, cease thy beating : — Heart be still ! 



TO THE LADY OF MY HEART. 165 

"Why should I longer watch and weep ? 

Hame, hame to yonder glen 111 gae ; 
There in my bridal bed 111 sleep, 

Made i' th' kirkyard, cauld and blae. 
Ill soon, soon wi' my Jamie meet, 

Where sorrow has nae power to kill ; 
Earth's woes are past — and my poor heart 

Will soon have peace — will soon be still. 



TO THE LADY OF MY HEART. 

I dream' d I had a diamond mine 

Ayont yon billowy sea, 
An' a' thing rich, an' a' thing rare, 

Was brought to pleasure me. 
Earth's fairest things were at my gate 

An' standing in my ha' ; 
But forth I came in that proud hour 

An' chose thee 'mang them a\ 

I dream'd I was a powerful king, 

Wi' servants at command, — 
Ae word wad brought unto my knee 

The brightest in the land ; 
But ne'er on palaced halls I look'd — 

I hied me to the lea, 
An', mair than crowns, a loving heart 

I blithely gave to thee. 



ICG A CASTLE IN THE AIR. 

I woke, and was, what I am now, 

A man o* laigh degree, — 
Nae wealth ka'e I — nae silken pomp — 

Nae gather d gowd to gi'e : 
But I ha'e something yet to boast, 

Ne'er bought wi' warld's gear, — 
A heart that never failed a friend, — 

An' what wad ye ha'e mair ? 



A CASTLE IN THE AIR. 

Come, sit amang the daisies, 

Beside the violets blue, 
A dream I have to tell you — 

An* ! if it were true ! 
For 'tis o' love an' happiness, 

An ither fireside things : 
The scenes o' Scotland's cottage hames 

That dream before me brings. 

I thought that baith thegither 

We gaed across the sea, 
An' deep into the forest land 

O' yon far countrie ; 
Syne we chose a very pleasant spot 

Beside a woodland lake, 
An' there a lowly forest hame, 

Of tall trees, we did make. 



A CASTLE IN THE AIR. 107 

We biggit it beside a stream, 

Within a forest glade, 
Where the fairest o' the woodland things 

Their dwelling-place, had made. 
It was a lowly hamestead, 

An' round it, to an' fro, 
A sun-nurs'd flower its clusters rich 

Fu gracefully did throw. 

We reard our modest dwelling — 

We cleard our forest land — 
An' through the bosky glens sae wild 

We wander'd hand in hand. 
Like a voice frae hame, the blue bird 

Aye cheer' d us wi' its sang;— 
We were as happy in the woods 

As simmer days are lang. 

My dream o' peace an happiness 

Was far o'er gude to last : 
The light grew dim, syne pass'd away,— 

The sky grew sair o'ercast. 
'Twas but a vision o' the night, 

An' came but to deceive ; 
But, boding o' a gown o' gowd, 

We '11 maybe get the sleeve ! 



168 THE LASSES. 



THE LASSES. 



The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 
Rise up, ye loons — ye daurna sit — 
Around me join ilk voice to mine — 
The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Though some may geek at womankind, 
An' slight them sair to shaw their wit — 

Their loving subjects leal are we : — 
The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Chorus — The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! &c. 

Their kindly and their lovesome ways 
To them ilk manly heart should knit : 

The flowers o' earth an' joys o' life— 
The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Chorus — The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! &c. 

"We dinna like a weary wind 

That ever in ae airt doth sit : 
They change, an changes lightsome are ; — 

The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Chorus — The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! &c. 

Wha on the earth ha'e warmest hearts ? 

Wha welcome first the stranger fit ? 
Wha bless our youth an cheer our age ? — 

The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Chorus — The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! &c. 



THE LASSES. 169 

They're kindly, frae the grannie auld, 

That crooning in the neuk doth sit, 
To laughing gilpies herding kye — 

The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Chorus — The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! &c. 

The lift is sweet in summer rain, 

And when the sun its arch doth light ; 

And sweet are they in smiles or tears — 
The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Chorus — The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! &c. 

Auld gabbin gray-beards please at morn ; 

And rantin chields when yill we get ; 
But, ance and aye, the dearies charm ; — 

The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Chorus — The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! &c. 

Camsteerie they at times may be ; 

But louring clouds will quickly flit : 
The warmest sun comes after shade — 

The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Chorus — The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! &c. 

The lasses ! frae the Jewell' d queen 
To rosy dears, in ha* and hut, — 
The lasses ! here and everywhere — 
The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Chorus — The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 

Rise up, ye loons — ye daurna sit- 
Around me join ilk voice to mine — 
The lasses yet ! the lasses yet ! 



PART III. 



POEMS, 

CHIEFLY IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT, 
ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE FEELINGS OF THE IN- 
TELLIGENT AND RELIGIOUS AMONG THE 
WORKING-CLASSES OF SCOTLAND. 



STANZAS ON THE BIRTHDAY OF BURNS. 

This is the natal day of hini 

"Who, born in want and poverty, 
Burst from his fetters, and arose 

The freest of the free ; — 

Arose to tell the watching earth 

What lowly men could feel and do, — 

To show that mighty, Heaven-like souls 
In cottage hamlets grew. 

Burns ! thou hast given us a name 

To shield us from the taunts of scorn ; — - 

The plant that creeps amid the soil 
A glorious flower hath borne. 



WE ARE LOWLY. 171 

Before the proudest of the earth 

We stand with an uplifted brow ; 
Like us, thou wast a toil-worn man, 

And we are noble now ! 

Inspired by Thee the lowly hind 

All soul- degrading meanness spurns ; 

Our teacher, saviour, saint, art thou, 
Immortal Robert Burns ! 



WE ARE LOWLY. 

We are lowly — very lowly, 

Misfortune is our crime ; 
We have been trodden under foot 

From all recorded time. 
A yoke upon our necks is laid, 

A burden to endure ; 
To suffer is our legacy, 

The portion of the poor ! 

We are lowly — very lowly, 

And scorned from day to day ; 
Yet we have something of our own 

Power cannot take away. 
By tyrants we are toiled to death — 

By cold and hunger killed ; 
But peace is in our hearts, it speaks 

Of duties all fulfilled! 

M 



172 WE ARE LOWLY. 

We are lowly — very lowly, 

Nor house nor land have we ; 
But there 's a heritage for us 

While we have eyes to see. 
They cannot hide the lovely stars, 

Words in Creation's book, 
Although they hold their fields and lanes 

Corrupted by our look ! 

We are lowly — very lowly ,— 

And yet the fairest flowers 
That by the wayside raise their eyes, — 

Thank God, they still are ours ! 
Ours is the streamlet's mellow voice, 

And ours the common dew ; 
We still dare gaze on hill and plain, 

And field and meadow too ! 

We are lowly — very lowly, — 

But when the cheerful Spring 
Comes forth with flowers upon her feet 

To hear the throstle sing, 
Although we dare not seek the shade 

Where haunt the forest deer — 
The waving leaves we still can see, 

The hymning birds can hear ! 

We are lowly — very lowly, 
Our hedgerow paths are gone 

Where woodbines laid their fairy hands 
The hawthorn's breast upon, 



we'll mak' the warld better yet. 173 

Yet slender mercies still are left, — 

And Heaven doth endure, 
And hears the prayers that upward rise 

From the afflicted poor ! 



WE'LL MAK' THE WARLD BETTER YET. 

The braw folk crush the poor folk down, 

An' blood an' tears are rinnin' het ; 
An' meikle ill and meikle wae, 

We a' upon the earth have met. 
An' Falsehood aft comes boldly forth, 

And on the throne of Truth doth sit ; 
But true hearts a' — gae work awa' — 

We '11 mak' the Warld better yet ! 

Though Superstition, hand in hand, 

Wi' Prejudice — that gruesome hag — 
Gangs linkin' still ; though Misers make 

Their heaven o' a siller bag : 
Though Ignorance, wi' bloody hand, 

Is tryin' Slavery's bonds to knit — 
Put knee to knee, ye bold an' free, 

We '11 mak' the Warld better yet ! 

See yonder cooff wha becks an' bows 
To yonder fool wha's ca'd a lord : 

See yonder gowd-bedizzen'd wight — 
Yon fopling o' the bloodless sword. 



174 THE HERO. 

Baith slave, an' lord, an' soldier too, 
Maun honest grow, or quickly flit ; 

For freemen a', baitli grit an' snia', — 
We'll mak' the Warld better yet ! 

Yon dreamer tells us o' a land 

He frae his airy brain hath made — 
A land where Truth and Honesty 

Have crushed the serpent Falsehood's head. 
But by the names o' Love and Joy, 

An' Common-sense, and Lear an' Wit, 
Fut back to back, — and in a crack 

We'll mak' our Warld better yet ! 

The Knaves and Fools may rage and storm, 

The growling Bigot may deride— 
The trembling Slave away may rin, 

And in his Tyrant's dungeon hide ; 
But Free and Bold, and True and Good, 

Unto this oath their seal have set — 
" Frae pole to pole we'll free ilk soul, — 

The Warld shall be better yet I" 



THE HERO. 



My Hero is na deck'd wi' gowd — 
He has nae glittering state ; 

Renown upon a field o' blood 
In war he hasna met ! 



THE HERO. 175 

He has nae siller in his pouch, 

Nae menials at his ca' ; 
The Proud o' earth frae him would turn, 

And bid him stand awa' ! 

His coat is hame-spun hodden-gray— 

His shoon are clouted sair — 
His garments, maist unhero-like, 

Are a* the waur o' wear : 
His limbs are strong — his shoulders broad — 

His hands were made to plough ; 
He's rough without, but sound within — 

His heart is bauldly true ! 

He toils at e'en, he toils at morn — 

His wark is never through ; 
A coming life o* weary toil 

Is ever in his view ! 
But on he trudges, keeping aye 

A stout heart to the brae, — 
And proud to be an honest man 

Until his dying day. 

His hame a hame o' happiness 

And kindly love may be ; 
And monie a nameless dwelling-place 

Like his we still may see. 
His happy altar-hearth so bright 

Is ever bleezing there ; 
And cheerfu' faces round it set 

Are an unending prayer I 



176 



OUR KING, 

The poor man, in his humble hame, 

Like God, who dwells aboon, 
Makes happy hearts around him there — 

Sae joyfu late and soon ! 
His toil is sair, his toil is lang ; 

But weary nights and days, 
Hame — happiness akin to his — 

A hunder-fauld repays ! 

Go, mock at Conquerors and Kings ! 

"What happiness give they ? 
Go, tell the painted butterflies 

To kneel them down and pray ! 
Go, stand erect in Manhood's pride — 

Be what a man should be — 
Then come, and to my Hero bend 

Upon the grass your knee ! 



OUR KING. 



We ha'e great folk — what for no ? — 

In our Lowland clachan ; 
Our Tailor's an anointed King — 

We carena for your laughin'. 
Kings rare do gude, — but he's done some ; 

And for the rest, Tm thinking — 
To tell the truth and shame the deil — 

There's nae king like our ain King ! 



OUR KING. 177 



He lias nae power to head or hang— 

'Mang tyrants ne'er was rankit ; 
Deil ane o' soldier kind has he — • 

For that the Lord be thankit ! 
Nae courtiers bend around his knees, 

Wha fast to Nick are sinking, 
Wi' rotten hearts and leein tongues — 

There's nae king like our ain King ! 

The cash he spends is a* his ain, 

He taks nae poor man's siller ; 
Ae douce gudewife's enough for him, — 

He's kind and couthie till her. 
The deil a penny debt has he — 

Nor scarlet madams blinking- 
He ne'er was by that slavery cursed — 

There's nae king like our ain King ! 

Frae bloody wars and ill-faur d strife 

His kingdom aye reposes, 
Except when whiles the weans fa' out, 

And make some bloody noses. 
And syne the Tailor takes his taws 

And paiks them round like winking : 
Our King redeems the bloody pack— 

There's nae king like our ain King ! 

His palace-roof is made o' strae — ■ 
His crown is a blue bannet ; 

His sceptre is a pair o' sheers — ■ 
His c|ueen is christend Janet. 



178 THE PUIR FOLK. 

He's nae oppressor — tears o' wae 
He ne'er delights in drinking ; 

The first o' honest kings is he — 
There's nae king like our ain King ! 



THE PUIR FOLK. 



A SONG. 



Some grow fu' proud o'er bags o' gowd, 
And some are proud o' learning : 

An honest poor man's worthy name 
I take delight in earning. 

Slaves needna try to run us down- 
To knaves we're unco dour folk ; 

We're aften wrang'd, but, deil may care ! 
"We're honest folk, though puir folk ! 

Wi' Wallace wight we fought fu weel, 

When lairds and lords were jinking ; 
They knelt before the tyrant loon — 

We brak his crown I'm thinking. 
The muckle men he bought wi' gowd — 

Syne he began to jeer folk ; 
But neither swords, nor gowd, nor guile. 

Could turn the sturdy puir folk ! 

When auld King Charlie tried to bind 
Wi' airn, saul and conscience, 



THE PUIR FOLK. 179 

In virtue o' his right divine, 

An' ither daft-like nonsense ; 
Wha raised at Marston such a stour. 

And made the tyrants fear folk ? 
Wha prayed and fought wi' Pym and Noll ? 

The trusty, truthfu' puir folk ! 

"Wha ance upon auld Scotland's hills 

Were hunted like the paitrick, 
And hack'd wi' swords, and shot wi' guns, 

Frae Tummel's bank to Ettrick, — 
Because they wouldna' let the priest 

About their conscience steer folk ? 
The lairds were bloodhounds to the clan — 

The Martyrs were the puir folk ! 

When Boston boys at Bunker's hill 

Gart Slavery's minions falter ; 
While ilka hearth in a' the bay 

Was made fair Freedom's altar ; 
Wha fought the fight, and gained the day ? 

Gae wa, ye knaves ! 'twas our folk : 
The beaten great men served a king — 

The victors a' were puir folk ! 

We sow the corn and haud the plough — 

We a' work for our living ; 
We gather nought but what we've sown — 

A' else we reckon thieving : — 
And for the loon wha fears to say 

He comes o' lowly, sma' folk, 



180 THE BURSTING OF THE CHAIN. 

A wizen'd saul the ereature has — 
Disown him will the puir folk ! 

Great sirs, and mighty men o* earth, 

Ye aften sair misca* us ; 
And hunger, cauld, and poverty 

Come after ye to thraw us. 
Yet up our hearts we strive to heeze, 

In spite o' you and your folk ; 
But mind, enough's as gude's a feast, i 

Although we be but puir folk ! 

We thank the Powers for gude and ill, 

As gratefu' folk should do, man ; 
But maist o' a' because our sires 

Were tailors, smiths, and ploughmen. 
Good men they were, as stanch as steel- 

They didna wrack and screw folk: 
Wi' empty pouches — honest hearts — 

Thank God, we come o* poor folk ! 



THE BURSTING OF THE CHAIN. 

AN ANTHEM FOR THE THIRD CENTENARY OF THE REFORMATION. 
(INSCRIBED TO THE REVEREND H. CLARKE.) 

An offering to the shrine of Power 

Our hands shall never bring — 
A garland on the car of Pomp 

Oar hands shall never fling — 



THE BURSTING OF THE CHAIN. 181 

Applauding in the Conqueror's path 

Our voices ne'er shall be ; 
But we have hearts to honour those 

Who bade the world go free ! 

Stern Ignorance man's soul had bound 

In fetters, rusted o'er 
With tears — with scalding human tears — 

And red with human gore ; 
But men arose — the Men to whom 

We bend the freeman's knee — 
Who, GoD-encouraged, burst the chain, 

And made our fathers free ! 

Light dwelt where Darkness erst had been — 

The morn of Mind arose— 
The dawning of that Day of Love 

Which never more shall close : 
Joy grew more joyful, and more green 

The valley and the lea,- — 
The glorious sun from Heaven look'd down, 

And smiled upon the Free ! 

Truth came, and made its home below ; 

And Universal Love, 
And Brotherhood, and Peace, and Joy, 

Are following from above : 
And happy ages on the earth 

Humanity shall see ; 
And happy lips shall bless their names 

Who made our children free ! 



182 WE ARE FREE. 

Praise to the Good — the Pure — the Great- 

Who made us what we are ! — 
Who lit the flame which yet shall glow 

With radiance brighter far : — 
Glory to them in coming time, 

And through Eternity ! 
They burst the Captive's galling chain, 

And bade the world go free ! 



WE ARE FREE. 

Like lightning's flash, 

Upon the foe 
We burst, and laid 

Their glories low ! 
Like mountain-floods 

We on them came — 
Like withering blast 

Of scorching flame, 
Like hurricane 

Upon the sea, — 
Shout — shout again — 

Shout, We are Free ! 

We struck for God — 
We struck for life — 

We struck for sire — 
We struck for wife — 



ENDURANCE. 183 



We struck for home— 

"We struck for all 
That man doth lose 

By bearing thrall ! 
We struck 'gainst chains, 

For liberty ! 
Now, for our pains, 

Shout, We are Free ! 

Give to the slain 

A sigh — a tear ; — 
A curse to those 

Who spoke of fear ! 
Then eat your bread 

In peace ; for now 
The Tyrant's pride 

Is lying low ! 
His strength is broken— 

His minions flee — 
The Yoice hath spoken — 

Shout, We are Free ! 



ENDURANCE. 

If you have borne the bitter taunts 
Which proud, poor men must bear ; 

If you have felt the upstart's sneer 
Your heart like iron sear ; 



184 ENDURANCE. 

If you have heard yourself belied, 
Nor answer'd word nor blow; 

You haye endured as I haye done — 
And poverty you know I 

If you haye heard old Mammons laugh, 

And borne of wealth the frown ; 
If you have felt your yery soul 

Destroyed and casten down, — 
And been compelled to bear it all 

For sake of daily bread — 
Then haye you suffered what is laid 

Upon the poor man's head ! 

If you have seen your children starved, 

And wish'd to bow and die. 
Crush'd by a load of bitterness, 

Scorn, and contumely ; 
If misery has gnaw'd your soul 

Until its food grew pain — 
Then you have shed the bloody tears 

That cheeks of poor men stain ! 

There is a Book,— ^and hypocrites 

Say they believe it true, — 
Which tells us men are equal all ! 

Do they believe and do ? 
No, vampires ! Christ they crucify 

In men of low degree : 
Could souls decay — the poor mans soul 

A mortal thing would be ! 



A BACCHANALIAN, 185 



A BACCHANALIAN. 

They make their feasts, and fill their cups- 

They drink the rosy wine — 
They seek for pleasure in the bowl : — 

Their search is not like mine. 
From misery I freedom seek— 

I crave relief from pain ; 
From hunger, poverty, and cold— 

I'll go get drunk again ! 

The wind doth through my garments run — 

I'm naked to the blast ; 
Two days have flutter'd o'er my head 

Since last I broke my fast. 
But I'll go drink, and straightway clad 

In purple I shall be ; 
And I shall feast at tables spread 

With rich men's luxury ! 

My wife is naked, — and she begs 

Her bread from door to door ; 
She sleeps on clay each night beside 

Her hungry children four ! 
She drinks — I drink : for why ? it drives 

All poverty away ; 
And starving babies grow again 

Like happy children gay ! 



186 THE POOR MAN'S DEATH-BED. 

In broad-cloth clad, with belly full, 

A sermon you can preach ; 
But hunger, cold, and nakedness, 

Another song would teach. 
I'm bad and vile — what matters that 

To outcasts such as we ? 
Bread is denied — come, wife, we'll drink 

Again, and happy be ! 



THE POOR MAN'S DEATH-BED. 

The Winter floods frae bank to brae 

Gaed roaring to the sea, 
When a weary man of toil cam' hame, 

And laid him down to dee. 
And lowly was his bed of strae, 

And humble was his fare ; 
But high and strong his honest heart — 

Nor wish'd he to ha'e mair ! 

His bonnie bairns, sae fair and young, 
Around his bed they sat, 

And their wae mother held his head, 
And lang and sair she grat. 

" Why greet ye, wife," said that poor man- 
Why greet ye, bairns, for me ? 

If frae this toilsome world I win, 
Rejoicing ye should be. 



THE POOR MAN'S DEATH-BED. 187 

" I've kept a house aboon my head 

This thirty years and mair, 
And tried to haud the honest way 

By toils and struggles sair. 
And God look'd down, and God did see 

The waes the poor maun dree, 
And sent an angel frae aboon 

To come and ca' for me ! 

« greet na, wife, though lang we've been 

As twa fond hearts should be ; 
For though I gang to Heaven first, 

Ye soon will follow me. 
And God, who minds the lintie young, 

And gars the lily grow, 
"Will care for you and our wee bairns, 

And gi'e ye love enow. 

" Lang toil is coming on my bairns — 

Toil sair and sad, like mine ; 
But keep a high and sturdy heart, 

And never weakly pine. 
Your father had an honest name, 

And be ye honest too ; 
What's fause ne'er say for living man — 

What's evil dinna do ! 

" My toil, and cauld, and hunger sair, 

Are wellnigh past and done; 
Your toil, and cauld, and hunger, dears, 

Are barely yet begun. 



188 THE CAIRN. 

But live, like brothers, lovingly, 

And honest-hearted dee ; 
And syne, where I am gaun to dwell, 

My bairns will come to me. 

" The blast blaws chill — I'm waxing faint- 

And when I'm ta'en awa, 
Be to your mother, comforts, hopes, 

And joys and loves an a' ; 
Your father's dying counsels from 

Your bosoms never tine ; 
And if you live as he has lived, 

Your deaths will be like mine ! " 

The pious poor man sleeps at length, 

Where pains and toils are o'er ; 
The bitter wind — the Hunger-Fiend — 

Can torture him no more. 
That land hath something to amend, 

And much to prize and bless, 
Where poor men suffer and endure, 

Whose death-beds are like this. 



THE CAIRN. 

No chieftain of the olden time 
Beneath this cairn doth lie, 

And yet it hath a legend sad — 
A fireside tragedy. 



THE CAIRN. 189 

A Highland mother and her child, 

Upon a winter day, 
Went forth, to beg their needful food 

A long and weary way! 

The bitter wind blew stormily, 

And frozen was each rill ; 
And all the glens with drifted snow 

Were filled from hill to hill ! 

The day went past, the night came down, 

And in her hut was mourning, 
And sad, young eyes look'd from the door — - 

But she was not returning. 

" And where is she?" her children said : 

" Why lingers she away?" 
The snow-storm's howl did answer make 

Upon the muirland gray ! 

They sought her east — they sought her west — 

They sought her everywhere ; 
They search'd the folds and shielings lone 

Among the hills so bare. 

The Highland mother was not found, 

Nor yet her fair-haird child ; 
And superstition whisper d low, 

Of spirits in the wild ! 

The breath of Spring came on the hills, 
And dyed their mantle blue ; 



190 I DARE NOT SCORN. 

And greenness came upon the grass, 
And scarlet heath-flowers too ! 

The shepherds wandering o'er the hills, 

And in this valley wild, 
Calm, as in softest sleep, they found 

The mother and her child ! 

There lay the babe upon the breast 
That had the infant nurs'd ; 

A mothers love that bosom fill'd 
When death that bosom burst. 

The daisies sweet, and lone, and pure, 
Were growing round the pair ; 

And shepherds o'er the victims rear'd 
This mossy cairn there ! 

A humble tale, and unadorn'd, 

It is of humble woe ; 
But he who heeds not such may turn, 

And, if it likes him, go ! 



I DARE NOT SCORN. 

I may not scorn the meanest thing 
That on the earth doth crawl, 

The Slave who dares not burst his chain, 
The Tyrant in his hall. 



THE PEOPLE S ANTHEM. 191 

The vile Oppressor who hath made 

The widow'd mother mourn, 
Though worthless, soulless, he may stand — • 

I cannot, dare not scorn. 

The darkest night that shrouds the sky 

Of beauty hath a share ; 
The blackest heart hath signs to tell 

That God still lingers there. 

I pity all that evil are — 

I pity and I mourn ; 
But the Supreme hath fashiond all, 

And, oh ! I dare not scorn. 



THE PEOPLE'S ANTHEM. 

Lord, from thy blessed throne, 
Sorrow look down upon ! 

God save the Poor ! 
Teach them true Liberty — 
Make them from tyrants free — 
Let their homes happy be ! 

God save the Poor ! 

The arms of wicked men 
Do Thou with might restrain — 
God save the Poor I 



192 THE QUESTIONER. 

Raise Thou their lowliness — 
Succour Thou their distress — 
Thou whom the meanest bless ! 
God save the Poor ! 

Give them stanch honesty — 
Let their pride manly be — 

God save the Poor ! 
Help them to hold the right ; 
Give them both truth and might, 
Lord of all Life and Light ! 

God save the Poor ! 



THE QUESTIONER. 

A CHANT. 

I ask not for his lineage, 

I ask not for his name — 
If manliness be in his heart, 

He noble birth may claim. 
I care not though of world's wealth 

But slender be his part, 
If Yes you answer, when I ask — 

Hath he a true man's heart ? 

I ask not from what land he came, 
Nor where his youth was nurs'd — 

If pure the stream, it matters not 
The spot from whence it burst. 



THE QUESTIONER. 193 

The palace or the hovel, 

"Where first his life began, 
I seek not of; but answer this — 

Is he an honest man ? 

Nay, blush not now — what matters it 

Where first he drew his breath ? 
A manger was the cradle-bed 

Of Him of Nazareth ! 
Be nought, be any, every thing — 

I care not what you be — 
If Yes you answer, when I ask — 

Art thou pure, true, and free ? 



PART IV. 



SERIOUS AND PATHETIC POEMS. 



THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN. 

High thoughts ! 

They come and go, 

Like the soft breathings of a listening maiden, 
While round me flow 

The winds, from woods and fields with gladness 
laden : 
When the corn's rustle on the ear doth come — 
When the eve's beetle sounds its drowsy hum — 
When the stars, dew-drops of the summer sky,. 
Watch over all with soft and loving eye- — 
While the leaves quiver 
By the lone river, 
And the quiet heart 

From depths doth call 
And garners all — 
Earth grows a shadow 
Forgotten whole, 
And Heaven lives 

In the blessed soul ! 



THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN. 105 

High thoughts ! 

They are with me 

When, deep within the bosom of the forest, 
Thy morning melody 

Abroad into the sky, thou, Throstle ! pourest. 
When the young sunbeams glance among the trees — 
When on the ear comes the soft song of bees — 
When every branch has its own favourite bird 
And songs of summer, from each thicket heard !— 
Where the owl flitteth, 
Where the roe sitteth, 
And holiness 

Seems sleeping there ; 
While Nature's prayer 
Goes up to heaven 

In purity, 
Till all is glory 

And joy to me ! 

High thoughts ! 

They are my own 

When I am resting on a mountains bosom, 
And see below me strown 

The huts and homes where humble virtues blos- 
som; 
When I can trace each streamlet through the meadow — 
When I can follow every fitful shadow — 
When I can watch the winds among the corn, 
And see the waves along the forest borne ; 

Where blue-bell and heather 
Are blooming together, 



196 THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN. 

And far doth come 
The Sabbath bell, 
O'er wood and fell ; 

I hear the beating 

Of Nature's heart : 

Heaven is before me — 
God ! Thou art ! 

High thoughts ! 
They visit us 

In moments when the soul is dim and darken' d ; 
They come to bless, 

After the vanities to which we hearkend : 
When weariness hath come upon the spirit — 
(Those hours of darkness which we all inherit) — 
Bursts there not through a glint of warm sunshine, 
A winged thought, which bids us not repine ? 
In joy and gladness, 
In mirth and sadness, 
Come signs and tokens ; 
Life's angel brings, 
Upon its wings, 
Those bright communings 
The soul doth keep — 
Those thoughts of Heaven 
So pure and deep ! 



AROUSE THEE, SOUL ! 197 



AROUSE THEE, SOUL ! 

Arouse thee, Soul ! 
God made not thee to sleep 
Thy hour of earth, in doing nought — away ; 

He gave thee power to keep. 
O ! use it for His glory, while you may. 
Arouse thee, Soul ! 

Arouse thee, Soul ! 
! there is much to do 
For thee, if thou wouldst work for humankind — 

The misty Future through 
A greatness looms — 'tis Mind, awaken'd Mind ! 
Arouse thee, Soul ! 

Arouse thee, Soul ! 
Shake off thy sluggishness, 
As shakes the lark the dew-drop from its wing ; 

Make but one Error less, — 
One Truth — thine offering to Mind's altar bring ! 
Arouse thee, Soul ! 

Arouse thee, Soul ! 
Be what thou surely art, 
An emanation from the Deity, — 

A nutter of that heart 
Which fills all Nature, sea, and earth, and sky. 
Arouse thee, Soul ! 



US VISIONS. 

Arouse thee, Soul ! 
And let the body do 
Some worthy deed for human happiness 

To join, when life is through, 
Unto thy name, that angels both may bless ! 
Arouse thee, Soul ! 

Arouse thee, Soul ! 
Leave nothings of the earth; — 
And, if the body be not strong, to dare 

To blessed thoughts give birth, 
High as yon Heaven, pure as Heavens air: 
Arouse thee, Soul ! 

Arouse thee, Soul ! 
Or sleep for evermore, 
And be what all nonentities have been, — 

Crawl on till life is o'er : 
If to be ought but this thou e'er dost mean, 

Arouse thee, Soul ! 



VISIONS. 



" My hand is strong, my heart is bold, 
My purpose stern," I said ; 

" And shall I rest till I have wreath' d 
Fame's garland round my head ? 

No ! men shall point to me, and say, 
4 See what the bold can do ! ' " 



VISIONS. * 199 

" You dream ! " a chilling Whisper said ; 
And quick the vision flew. 

" Yes, I will gain," I musing thought, 

" Power, pomp, and potency ; 
Whate'er the proudest may have been, 

That straightway will I be. 
I'll write my name on human hearts 

So deep, 't will ne'er decay ! " 
" You dream ! " and as the Whisper spoke, 

My vision fled away. 

" I'm poor," I said ; " but I will toil 

And gather store of gold ; 
And in my purse the fate of kings 

And nations I will hold : 
I'll follow Fortune, till my path 

With wealth untold she strew !" 
Again, " You dream ! " the Whisper said, 

And straight my vision flew. 

" I'll breathe to men," I proudly thought, 

" A strain of poesy, 
Like the angelic songs of old, 

In fire and energy. 
My thoughts the thoughts of many lands, 

Of many men shall grow ;" 
" You dream ! " the Whisper scorning said — 

I dared not answer, No. 



200 THE HERD LASSIE. 

If I can gain nor name nor power, 

Nor gold, by high emprise, 
Bread to the hungry I will give, 

And dry the orphan's eyes : 
Through me the Sun of Joy shall find 

Its way to Sorrow's door : 
" The wildest dream of all," then said 

The Whisper — " You are poor ! " 

" I'm poor, unheeded ; but I'll be 

An honest man," I said ; 
" Truth I shall worship, yea, and feel 

For all whom God hath made : — 
The Poor and Honest Man can stand, 

With an unblenching brow, 
Before Earth's highest, — such 111 be :"- 

The Whisper spoke not now ! 



THE HERD LASSIE. 

I'm fatherless and motherless, 

There's nane on earth to care for me ; 
And sair and meikle are the waes 

That in the warld I maun dree. 
For I maun work a stranger's wark, 

And sit beside a stranger's fire ; 



THE HERD LASSIE. 201 

And cauld and hunger I maun thole 
From day to day, and never tire ! 

And I maun herd frae morn to e'en, 

Though sleety rain upon me fa' ; 
And never murmur or complein — 

And be at ilka body's ca\ 
I needna deck my gowden hair, 

Nor make mysel' so fair to see ; 
For I'm an orphan lassie poor — 

And wha would look or care for me ? 

The lave ha'e mothers good and kind, 

And joyfu is ilk daughter's heart ; 
The lave ha'e brothers stieve and Strang, ^ 

To haud ilk loving sisters part. 
But I'm a poor mans orphan bairn, 

And to the ground I laigh maun bow ; 
And were it nae a sinfu wish, 

Oh, I could wish the world through ! 

The caller summer morning brings 

Some joy to this wae heart o' mine ; 
But I the joy of life would leave, 

If I could wi' it sorrow tine. 
My mother said, in Heaven's bliss 

E'en puir herd lassies had a share : 
I wish I were where mother is — 

Her orphan then would greet nae mair ! 



202 I AM BLIND. 



I AM BLIND. 



The woodland ! ! how beautiful, 

How pleasant it must be ! 
How soft its grass — bow fresh the leaves 

Upon each forest-tree ! 
I hear its wild rejoicing birds 

Their songs of gladness sing ; 
To see them leap from bough to bough 

Must be a pleasant thing : 
I must but image it in mind, 
I cannot see it — I am blind ! 

I feel the fragrance of the flowers, — - 

Go, pull me one, I pray : 
The leaves are green upon its stalk — 

? Tis richly red you say ? 

! it must full of beauty be- 
lt hath a pleasant smell ; 

Could I but see its loveliness 
My heart with joy would swell ! 

1 can but image it in mind — 

I ne'er shall see it — I am blind I 

The trees are glorious green, you say — • 
Their branches widely spread ; 

And Nature on their budding leaves 
Its nursing dew hath shed. 

They must be fair ; but what is green ? 
What is a spreading tree ? 



I AM BLIND, 203 

What is a shady woodland walk ? 

Say, canst thou answer me ? 
No ! I may image them in mind, 
But cannot know them — I am blind ! 

The songsters that so sweetly chant 

Within the sky so fair, 
Until my heart with joy doth leap, 

As it a wild bird were — 
How seem they to the light-bless'd eye ? 

What ! are they then so small ? 
Can sounds of such surpassing joy 

From things so tiny fall ? 
I must but image them in mind — 
I cannot see them — I am blind ! 

A something y/arm comes o'er my hand ; 

What is it ? pray thee tell : 
Sunlight come down among the trees 

Into this narrow dell ? 
Thou seest the sunlight and the sun, 

And both are very bright ! 
'Tis well they are not known to me, 

Or I might loathe my night : 
But I may image them in mind— 
I ne'er shall see them — I am blind ! 

My hand is resting on your cheek — 

'Tis soft as fleecy snow : 
My sister, art thou very fair ? 

That thou art good, I know. 



204 WILD FLOWERS. 

Thou art — thou art ! I feel the blush 
Along thy neck doth wend ! 

Thou must be fair — so carefully 
Thy brother thou dost tend ! 

But I must image thee in mind — 

I cannot see thee — I am blind ! 

The changes of the earth and sky — 
All Nature's glow and gloom — 

Must ever be unknown to me — 
My soul is in a tomb ! 

! I can feel the blessed sun, 
Mirth, music, tears that fall, 

And darkness sad, and joy, and woe,- 

Yea, Nature's movements all : 
But I must image them in mind — 

1 cannot see them — I am blind ! 



WILD FLOWERS. 

Beautiful children of the woods and fields ! 

That bloom by mountain streamlets 'mid the heather, 
Or into clusters, 'neath the hazels, gather, — 

Or where by hoary rocks you make your bields, 

And sweetly flourish on through summer weather,— 

I love ye all ! 

Beautiful flowers ! to me ye fresher seem 
From the Almighty hand that fashion'd all, 
Than those that flourish by a garden- wall ; 



i 



WILD FLOWERS. 205 

And I can image you, as in a dream, 

Fair, modest maidens, nursed in hamlets small : — 

I love ye all ! 

Beautiful gems ! that on the brow of earth 

Are fix'd, as in a queenly diadem ; 

Though lowly ye, and most without a name, 
Young hearts rejoice to see your buds come forth, 

As light erewhile into the world came, — 

I love ye all ! 



Beautiful things ye are, where'er ye grow ! 

The wild red rose — the speedwell's peeping eyes — 
Our own bluebell — the daisy, that doth rise 

Wherever sunbeams fall or winds do blow ; 

And thousands more, of blessed forms and dyes, — 

I love ye all ! 

Beautiful nurslings of the early dew ! 

Fann'd, in your loveliness, by every breeze, 
And shaded o'er by green and arching trees : 

I often wish that I were one of you, 
Dwelling afar upon the grassy leas, — 

I love ye all ! 

Beautiful watchers ! day and night ye wake ! 
The Evening Star grows dim and fades away, 
And Morning comes and goes, and then the Day 

Within the arms of Night its rest doth take ; 
But ye are watchful wheresoe'er we stray, — 

I love ve all ! 



206 THE ANEMONE. 

Beautiful objects of the wild-bee's lore ! 

The wild-bird joys your opening bloom to see, 
And in your native woods and wilds to be. 

All hearts, to Nature true, ye strangely move ; 
Ye are so passing fair — so passing free, — 

I love ye all ! 

Beautiful children of the glen and dell — 

The dingle deep — the moorland stretching wide, 
And of the mossy fountain's sedgy side ! 

Ye o'er my heart have thrown a lovesome spell ; 
And, though the Worldling, scorning, may deride,- 

I love ye all ! 



THE ANEMONE. 

When Autumn winds blaw cauld and chill, 

Why droop ye, flowerie, sae ? 
Why leave us for your winter cell, 

Sweet, wild Anemone ? 

Dost think our hearts refuse to prize 

The thiogs we see alway ? 
To see thee is to love thee well, 

Sweet, wild Anemone ! 

Why need ye fear the bitter wind 
That through the woods doth gae ? 

Its heart is cold, but thee 't would spare, 
Sweet, wild Anemone ! 



time's changes. 207 



A fit ensample thou mightst take 
The hopping robin frae— 

The emblem pure of Constancy, 
Sweet, wild Anemone ! 

If winter fields be cauld and bare — 
If winter skies be blae — 

The mair we need thy bonnie face, 
Sweet, wild Anemone ! 

But so it is ; and when away 
For dreary months you be, 

The joy of meeting pays for all, 
Sweet, wild Anemone ! 



TIME'S CHANGES. 

Like mist upon the lea, 

And like night upon the plain, 
Auld age comes o'er the heart 

Wr dolour and wi' pain, 
Blithe youth is like a smile, 

Sae mirthfu and sae brief; 
Syne wrinkles on the cheek 

Come like frost upon the leaf. 

O ! were I young again, 

Were my heart as glad and free, 
And were my foot as firm 

As it was wont to be, — 



208 TIMES CHANGES. 

I would in youth rejoice 
Mair than I yet ha'e done : 

'Tis a happy, happy time, 
But it passes unco soon. 

Frae a distant stranger land 

I came to sit again 
In the hame that shelter' d me 

Ere I sail'd across the main : 
But its wa's were lying low, 

And the honnie tree that grew 
By that couthie hamestead's door, 

Like niyseP, was wither d now. 

I sought my youthfu friend, — 

His heart was deadly cauld : 
He had lost the gamesome glee 

0' the merry days of auld. 
He took my offer'd hand, 

But he scarcely rais'd his e'e ; 
And a chill came o'er my heart — 

There was nae place there for me. 

I sought a maidens hame 

Whom I had loved in youth ; 
But nae maiden now was there — 

She had slighted love and truth : 
I fand her wi' the bairn 

Of anither on her knee ; 
And I turn'd and cam' awa' 

WF a tear-drap in my e'e. 



time's changes. 209 

When my brother's ha' I sought — • 

Wha had sleepit on my breast 
When we baith were bairn ies young — 

I found he was at rest : 
And my sisters, dearly loved, 

Were awa amang the lave, 
Aneath the chilly mools 

In a cauld but peacefu' grave. 

I sought the broomy howes, 

Where I was wont to gang 
When the flowers were buskit a' — 

When the summer days were Jang : 
But as I sat me down 

Beside the water-fa', 
A shadow as of age 

Grew dark upon them a'. 

A spreading tree was there, 

Which I in youth had set 
Beside the gowany green, 

Where the neebor bairns met. 
There were bees on ilka bud, 

And birds on ilka spray, 
And its leafy head was green, 

While mine was frosted gray. 

The burnie blithely ran, 

And the lintie lilted sweet — 
The laverock was on hie ; 

But mourning I did greet : 



210 time's changes. 

For I fancl I conldna lo'e 

What I lo'ed a mirthfu' boy ; 

As the heart that dwells in pain 
Grows without a wish for joy. 

It wasna like the time 

When, singing, I ha'e run 
Where the bluebell and the breckan 

Lay beeking in the sun ; 
Or, to catch the glancing trout, 

Ha'e waded in the burn, 
While my blue-e'ed neebor lassie 

My fathers kye would turn. 

I thought the hills were changed — 

The brown and bonnie hills ; 
And the woods, sae fu o' sang, 

And the wimplm* mountain rills : 
But nae years could alter them, 

Sae the thought was yanitie ; 
And my bosom whisper'd laigh, 

" The change is a' in thee." 

I sought the nameless grave 

Where my mothers banes did lie- 
Where the lips that pray'd for me 

Were dust and ashes dry : 
I thought that kirkyard mould 

Might on me pity take ; 
But the very grave was gane — 

O ! my heart is like to break. 



time's changes. 211 

And I am sitting now 

Upon the kirkyard wa', 
And gloamin's ghostly veil 

Upon the earth doth fa'. 
The cloud o' night is mirk ; 

But there 's darker gloom on me — 
The gloom o' friendless hearts : 

For tears I canna see. 

My auld een winna greet, 

When their day o' life is past ; 
For the wishes o' my heart 

Are ayont the world cast : 
My feet are in the grave, 

And I'm sinking slowly down ; 
And the grass will shortly grow 

My weary head aboon. 

Oh, were that moment come ! 

Oh, were that moment gane ! 
Oh, were the spirit flown 

Frae this mortal flesh and bane ! 
"Were my coffin in the yird, 

And my soul to God awa', 
I, worshipping, would say, 

" May Thou be bless'd for a P 



212 THE FORSAKEN. 



THE FORSAKEN. 

The rowing waves, the ocean tides, 

Are changefu' baith at e'en and morn, — 
Like sunshine and its following shade 

Upon the dew-wet, yellow corn : 
The burn sings saftly o'er the lea, 

Where ance it like a torrent ran ; 
But a* are steadfastness itsel' 

When liken'd to the heart o' man. 

Ane sought my love, when, in my teens, 

A thoughtless la ssie, I was gay ; 
I trusted, as a woman trusts, 

And made his love my bosom's stay ; 
And when, to gather gowd, he gaed 

To some far land ayont the main, 
I lang'd at e'en, I lang'd at morn, 

To see my lov'd one back again. 

I ne'er gaed near the youngsters' dance ; 

But, when the light o' day grew dim, 
I sought the broomy trysting knowe^ 

Where Quietness dwelt, to think on him. 
Years cam.' an' gaed ; but hame to me 

He hied na, as he should ha'e done : 
But, ! I ne'er mistrusted him — 

His name I cherish'd late an' soon. 



THE FORSAKEN. 213 

My father and my mother baith 

Were laid aneath the cauldrife yird, 
And I was left alane, alane, 

A mourning and a mateless bird. 
He came at length, — and ! my heart 

Was glad as heart can ever be, — 
He earn wi' a' his treasured love, 

He came to gi'e it a' to me. 

I heard his foot on my door-stane— 

He stood upon my lanely floor — 
I gazed upon the manly form 

That did my lassie's heart allure ; 
And bitter thoughts came in my breast : 

For Pride was dancing in the e'e 
Whence Love should ha'e been smiling sweet 

To bless, and glad, and comfort me. 

I saw his glance o' meikle scorn 

Upon my lanely maiden hame ; 
And O ! I thought my heart wad break 

While laigh I murmur' d forth his name. 
Pie gazed upon my alter' d form, — 

I kent what in his e'e did gleam : — 
He thought na, in his cruelty, 

The change was wrought by waiting him. 

He cauldly spake o* youthfu' days ; 

And o' his plighted faith spake he ; 
And syne I scorn'd the world's slave, 

And proudly told him he was free. 



214 A THOUGHT. 

He turn'd him wi' a mocking smile, 
And offer' cl gowd and offer' d gear : 

And then I sought in vain to dee, — 
For this I coudna, coudna bear. 

Truth, Love, and Woman's Faith, in youth, 

A dwellin' place had biggit me, — 
A hame where Joy upon my heart 

Had blinkit sunshine wondrouslie ; 
But Falsehood came, and to the earth 

That Palace o* the Soul did fa' : 
For Woman's Trustin' Faith was gane, 

And Truth and Love were far awa'. 

I bared my breast beneath a ray 

Sent frae Love's bonnie Simmer sun ; 
But, ere I wist, cauld Winter cam', 

And Hope and Joy gaed one by one. 
I maybe loved a thing o' earth 

O'er weel, and Heaven burst the chain ; — 
I ken na ; but my heart is sair, 

And Age is comin cauld and lane ! 



A THOUGHT. 



Yon sail on the horizons verge 

Doth like a wandering spirit seem,— 

A shadow in a sea of light — 
The passing of a dream. 



THE THOUGHT SPIRIT. 215 

A moment more and it is gone ! 

We know not how — we know not where ; 
It came — an instant staid — and then 

It vanish' d into air. 

Such are we all : we sail awhile 

In joy, on life's fair summer sea ; 
A moment — and our bark is gone 

Into Eternity. 



THE THOUGHT SPIRIT. 

Whence comest thou ? 

Far, far away, 
I have chased the shadows of morning gray ; 
Up through the mists where the stars are shining, 
Like the Blest, in their homes of light reclining — 
Away through the wilds of Immensity, 
Where man is afar, and where God is nigh, 
I have looked at the things which thou shalt see 
When the earth-bound spirit is soaring free ! 

Whence comest thou ? 

I have wandered far, 
Where the graves of the Patriot Martyrs are : 
I have knelt 'mid the leaves of the forest-land — 
By the graves of the Pilgrim Fathers' band ; 
Within their forests, beneath their trees, 
I have breath' d a prayer to the midnight breeze,— 
A prayer for a heart like the mighty and free, 
Whose lives were a Gospel of Liberty ! 



216 FOREST MUSINGS. 

Whence comest thou ? 

I have wandered free, 
With the fearless bark, o'er the cold north sea ; 
I have swung in the hammock and heard the tale, 
And followed the ship through storm and gale, 
Till I sunk in the wave where the tempest sweeps, 
Then I turned to the home where the mother weeps,- 
Where the wife and the orphan sigh and mourn 
For the brave and the bold who will ne'er return ! 

Whence comest thou ? 

'Neath a tropic sky, 
I have laid me down a sweet streamlet nigh ; 
And that sunny land was so sweet and fair, 
That I longed to recline for ever there ; 
But man came near ; and his soul was dark, 
God's image defiled with the Tyrant's mark : — 
The sterile land is the land for me, 
If man is mighty, and thought be free ! 



FOREST MUSINGS. 

The green leaves waving in the morning gale — 
The little birds that 'mid their freshness sing — 

The wild-wood flowers so tender-ey'd and pale — 
The wood-mouse sitting by the forest spring — 

The morning dew — the wild bee's woodland hum, 

All woo my feet to Nature's forest home. 

'Tis beautiful, from some tall craggy peak 
To watch the setting of the blessed sun — 



FOREST MUSINGS. 217 

To mark his light grow weaker, and more weak, 

Till earth and sky be hid in twilight dun ; 
Tis beautiful to watch the earliest ray, 
That sparkling comes across the ocean gray. 

But, oh ! more beautiful — more passing sweet 

It is, to wander in an hour like this — 
Where twisted branches overhead do meet, 

And gentle airs the bursting buds do kiss — 
Where forest-paths, and glades, and thickets green, 
Make up, of flowers and leaves, a world serene. 

To the pure heart, 't is happiness to mark 

The tree-tops waving in the warm sunshine— 

To hear thy song, thou cloud-embosom'd lark, 
Like that of some fair spirit all divine — 

To lie upon the forest's velvet grass, 

And watch the fearful deer in distance pass. 

! gloriously beautiful is earth ! — 

The desert wild, the mountain old and hoar, 

The craggy steep, upthrown at Nature's birth, 
The sweeping ocean wave, the pebbled shore. 

Have much of beauty all ; but none to me 

Is like the spot where stands the forest-tree. 

There I can muse, away from living men, 
Reclining peacefully on Nature's breast, — 

The woodbird sending up its GoD-ward strain, 
Nursing the spirit into holy rest ! 

Alone with God, within his forest fane, 

The soul can feel that all save Him is vain. 



218 THE SICK CHILD'S DREAM. 

Here it can learn — will learn— to love all things 
That He hath made — to pity and forgive 

All faults, all failings : Here the heart's deep springs 
Are opend up, and all on earth who live 

To me grow nearer, dearer than before — 

My brother loving I my God adore. 

A deep mysterious sympathy doth bind 
The human heart to Nature's beauties all ; 

We know not, guess not, of its force or kind ; 
But that it is we know. When ill doth fall 

Upon us — when our hearts are seard and riven — 

Well seek the forest land for peace and Heaven. 



THE SICK CHILDS DREAM. 

! mither, mither, my head was sair, 
And my een wi' tears were weet ; 

But the pain has gane for evermair, 

Sae, mither, dinna greet : 
And I hae had sic a bonnie dream, 

Since last asleep I fell, 
0' a' that is holy an gude to name, 

That I've waukend my dream to tell. 

1 thought on the morn o 9 a simmer day 

That awa' through the clouds I flew, 
While my silken hair did wavin play 
'Mang breezes steep'd in dew ; 



THE SICK CHILD'S DREAM. 219 

And the happy things o* life and light 

Were around my gowden way, 
As they stood in their parent Heaven's sight 

In the hames o' nightless day. 

An* sangs o' love that nae tongue may tell, 

Frae their hearts cam' flowin' free, 
Till the starns stood still, while alang did swell 

The plaintive melodie ; 
And ane o' them sang wi* my mither's voice, 

Till through my heart did gae 
That chanted hymn o* my bairnhood's choice, 

Sae dowie, saft, an' wae. 

Time happy things o' the glorious sky 

Did lead me far away,] 
Where the stream o' life rins never dry, 

Where naething kens decay ; 
And they laid me down in a mossy bed, 

Wi' curtains o' spring leaves green, 
And the name o' God they praying said, 

And a light came o'er my een. 

And I saw the earth that I had left,' 

And I saw my mither there ; 
And I saw her grieve that she was bereft 

O' the bairn she thought sae fair ; 
And I saw her pine till her spirit fled— 

Like a bird to its young one's nest — ■ 
To that land of love ; and my head was laid 

Again on my mither's breast. 

p 



220 THE SICK CHILD'S DREAM. 

And, mither, ye took me by the hand, 

As ye were wont to do ; 
And your loof, sae saft and white, I fand 

Laid on my caller brow ; 
And my lips you kiss'd, and my curling hair 

You round your fingers wreath'd ; 
And I kent that a happy mither' s prayer 

Was o'er me silent breath' d — 

And we wander'd through that happy land, 

That was gladly glorious a'; 
The dwellers there were an angel-band, 

And their voices o' love did fa' 
On our ravish' d ears like the deem tones 

O' an anthem far away, 
In a starn-lit hour, when the woodland moans 

That its green is turnd to gray. 

And, mither, amang the sorrowless there, 

We met my brithers three, 
And your bonnie May, my sister fair, 

And a happy bairn was she ; 
And she led me awa' 'mang living flowers, 

As on earth she aft has done ; 
And thegither we sat in the holy bowers 

Where the blessed rest aboon : — 

And she tauld me I was in Paradise, 
Where God in love doth dwell — 

Where the weary rest, and the mourner's voice 
Forgets its warld-wail ; 



THE MOTHER. 221 

And she tauld me they kent na dule nor care ; 

And bade me be glad to dee, 
That yon sinless land and the dwellers there 

Might be hame and kin to me. 

Then sweetly a voice came on my ears, 

And it sounded sae holily, 
That my heart grew saft, and blabs o' tears 

Sprung up in my sleepin' e'e ; 
And my inmost soul was sairly moved 

"WT its mair than mortal joy ; — 
'Twas the voice o' Him wha bairnies loved 

That waukend your dreamin boy ! 



THE MOTHER. 

There's a tear within my e'e, lassie- 

A sorrow in my heart ; 
And I canna smile on thee, 

Though dear to me thou art. 

My mither's dead an gane, 

An' I am lanely now ; 
An' the friendless there is nane 

To love, save God an' you. 

My mither's dead an' gane ; 
She has been a' to me : — 



222 THE MOTHER. 

! I wish when we are ane 
. I may be sae to thee. 

'Mang caukl an hunger's waes 
She nurtured me wi' care ; 

An' to gi'e me meat an claes 
She toil'd haith lang and sair. 

She toil'd an' ne'er thought lang, 
An* keepit herseP fu' cauld, 

That I might couthie gang 

When winter winds were bauld. 

She liv'd for Heaven's land, 
An' gude she gart me lo'e ; 

An she tauld me aye to stand 
"WT the faithfu an the true. 

She lived in povertie — 
A widow lane was she ; 

But her deein' words to me 
Were, " Haud by honestie." 

The puir maun joy resign — 
A puir mans wife was she ; 

An, like her, when thou art mine, 
A puir mans bride thou'lt be. 

We ha'e love, but naething mair ; 
An if frae thee I'm ta en, 



THE BEREAVED. 223 



Thou'lt ha'e to struggle sair, 
Like her that's dead an' gane. 

Thou'lt ha'e to struggle sair, 
To nurture men like me, 

Baith toil an scorn to bear — 
The puir folk's destinie. 

But there comes a restin' day — 
She's soundly sleepin' now : — 

The joyfu an the wae 

Are ane when life is through ! 



THE BEREAVED. 

They're a' gane thegither, Jeanie — > 

They're a gane thegither : 
Our bairns aneath the cauldrife yird 

Are laid wi' ane anither. 
Sax lads and lasses Death has ta'en 

Frae father an' frae mither ; 
But O ! we mauna greet and mane — 

They're a' on hie thegither, Jeanie — 

They're a' on hie thegither. 

Our eild will now be drearie, Jeanie — 
Our eild will now be drearie : 

Our young an' bonnie bairns ha'e gane, 
An' left our hame fu' eerie. 



224 THE PARTING. 

'Neath Age's Land we now may grane— 
In poortith cauld may swither : 

The things that toddled but an' ben 
Are a' on hie thegither, Jeanie — 
Are a' on hie thegither. 

Now sorrow may come near us, Jeanie — 
Now sorrow may come near us : 

The buirdiy chields are lyin' low 
Wha wadna let it steer us. 

The bonnie lasses are awa' 

Wha came like sun-glints hither, 

To fill wi' joy their fathers ha* — 

They're a' on hie thegither, Jeanie — 
They're a' on hie thegither. 

In the kirkyard they're sleepin', Jeanie— 
In the kirkyard they're sleepin' : 

It maybe grieves their happy souls 
To see their parents weepin\ 

They're on to bigg a hame for us, 

Where flowers like them ne'er wither, 

Amang the stars in love an' bliss — 
They're a' on hie thegither, Jeanie— 
They're a' on hie thegither. 



THE PARTING. 

My heart is sad and wae, mither, 
To leave my native land — 



THE PARTING. 225 

Its bonnie glens — its hills sae blue — 

Its memory-hallow'd strand — 
The friends I've lo'ed sae lang and weel — 

The hearts that feel for me : 
But, mither, mair than a' I grieve 
At leavin' thee. 

The hand that saft my bed has made 

When I was sick and sair, 
Will carefully my pillow lay 

And haud my head nae mair. 
The een that sleeplessly could watch 

When I was in my pain, 
Will ne'er for me, from night to dawn, 
E'er wake again. 

There's kindness in the warld, mither, 

An' kindness I will meet ; 
But nane can be what thou hast been— 

Nane's praise can be sae sweet ; 
Nae ither e'er can love thy son 

Wi' love akin to thine — 
An' nane can love thee, mither dear, 
Wi' love like mine. 

I'll keep thee in my inmost soul 

Until the day I dee ; 
For saft, saft is my mither's hand, 

An' kindly is her e'e ; 
An' when GoD-sent spirits far away 

To him my soul shall bear, 



226 THE GRAVE OF BURNS. 

My deepest joy will be to meet 
My mither there. 



THE GRAVE OF BURNS. 

By a kirkyard-yett I stood, while many enter'd in, 
Men bow'd wi' toil an' age — wi' haffets auld an' thin ; 
An' ithers in their prime, wi' a bearin' prond an' hie ; 
An* maidens, pure an bonnie as the daisies o' the lea ; 
An' matrons wrinkled auld, wi' lyart heads an gray ; 
An' bairns, like things o'er fair for Death to wede away. 

I stood beside the yett, while onward still they went, — 
The laird frae out his ha', an the shepherd frae the bent : 
It seem'd a type o' men, an' o' the grave's domain ; 
But these were livin' a', an' could straight come forth 

again. 
An* of the bedral auld, wi* meikle courtesie, 
I speer'd what it might mean ? an' he bade me look an' 

see. 

On the trodden path that led to the house of worshipping, 
Or before its open doors, there stood nae livin' thing ; 
But awa amang the tombs, ilk comer quickly pass'd, 
An' upon ae lowly grave ilk seekin' e'e was cast. 
There were sabbin' bosoms there, and proud yet soften 'd 

eyes, 
An' a whisper breathed around, " There the loved and 

honour'd lies." 



THE VILLAGE CHURCH. 227 

There was ne'er a murmur there — the deep-drawn breath 

was hush'd, — 
And o'er the maidens cheek the tears o feelin' gush'd ; 
An' the bonnie infant face was lifted as in prayer ; 
An' manhood's cheek was flush'd wi' the thoughts that 

movin were : 
I stood beside the grave, and I gazed upon the stone, 
And the name of " Robert Burns" was engraven 

thereupon. 



THE VILLAGE CHURCH. 

God's lowly temple ! place of many prayers ! 

Gray is thy roof, and crumbling are thy walls ; 

And over old green graves thy shadow falls, 
To bless the spot where end all human cares ! 

The sight of thee brings gladness to my heart ; 
And while beneath thy humble roof I stand, 
I seem to grasp an old familiar hand, 

And hear a voice that bids my spirit start. 

Long years ago, in childhood's careless hour, 
Thou wast to me e'en like a grandsire's knee — 
From storms a shelter thou wast made to be— • 

I bound my brow with ivy from thy tower. 

The humble-hearted, and the meek and pure 
Have, by the holy worship of long years. 



228 THE VILLAGE CHURCH. 

Made thee a hallowed place ; and mauy tears, 
Shed in repentance deep, have blessed thy floor. 

Like some all-loving good man's feeling heart, 

Thy portal hath been opened unto all ; 

A treasure-house, where men, or great or small, 
May bring their purest, holiest thoughts, thou art ! 

Church of the Village ! God doth not despise 
The torrent's voice in mountain valleys dim, 
Nor yet the blackbird's summer morning hymn ; 

And He will hear the prayers from thee that rise. 

The father loves thee, for his son is laid 

Among thy graves ; the mother loves thee too, 
For 'neath thy roof, by love time-tried and true, 

Her quiet heart long since was happy made. 

The wanderer in a far and foreign land, 

When death's last sickness o'er him revels free, 
Turns his heart homewards, ever unto thee, 

And those who, weekly, 'neath thy roof-tree stand. 

Lowly thou art ; but yet, when time is set, 

"Will He who loves what wicked men despise — 
Who hears the orphan's voice, that up doth rise 

In deep sincerity — not thee forget ! 

Lone temple ! did men know it — unto thee 

Would pilgrims come, more than to battle plains ; 
For thou hast lightened human woes and pains, 

And taught men's souls the truth that makes them free! 



A DIRGE. 229 



The distant sound of thy sweet Sabbath bell 
O'er meadows green no more shall come to me, 
Sitting beneath the lonely forest tree — 

Church of my native Village ! fare-thee-well ! 



A DIRGE. 



Sleep on, sleep on, ye resting dead ; 

The grass is o'er ye growing 
In dewy greenness. Eyer fled 
From you hath Care ; and, in its stead, 
Peace hath with you its dwelling made, 

Where tears do cease from flowing. 
Sleep on ! 

Sleep on, sleep on : Ye do not feel 

Life's ever-burning fever — 
Nor scorn that sears, nor pains that steel 
And blanch the loving heart, until 
5 Tis like the bed of mountain-rill 

Which waves have left for ever ! 
Sleep on ! 

Sleep on, sleep on : Your couch is made 
Upon your mother's bosom ; 

Yea, and your peaceful lonely bed 

Is all with sweet wild-flowers inlaid ; 

And over each earth-pillowed head 
The hand of Nature strews them. 
Sleep on ! 



230 MY ATJLD GTJDEWIFE. 

Sleep on, sleep on : I would I were 

At rest within your dwelling, — 
No more to feel, no more to bear 
The World's falsehood and its care — 
The arrows it doth never spare 

On him whose feet are failing. 
Sleep on ! 



MY AULD GUDEWIFE, 

Come in, gudewife, an sit ye down, 

An' let the wark alane : 
I'm thinkin now o' youthfu days 

An times that lang ha'e gane ; 
An' o' the monie ups an' downs 

In life that we ha'e seen, 
Since first beneath the trystm tree 

I clasp'd my bonnie Jean. 

How sweetly holy was the hour 
When first in love we met ! 

When first your breast was pressed to mine- 
That hour can I forget ? 

Wi' blessed love our hearts were fu 
Beneath the hawthorn green : 

'Twas then our happiness began, 
My ain — my bonnie Jean. 

Sweet shone the moon aboon our heads 
When aff ye gaed wi* me, 



MY AULD GUDEWIFE. 231 

And left your father in his sleep 

To wake and seek for thee — 
Your mither left to flyte and ban 

Frae mornin' until e'en, 
'Cause he whose poverty she scorn'd 

Was aff wi' bonnie Jean. 

Our marriage-day was bright and clear — - 

Our marriage-day was fair : 
For diamonds ye did daisies twine 

Amang your glossy hair. 
I wealthless was at openin' morn ; 

But at the closin' e'en 
I had what mailins couldna buy — 

My ain — my bonnie Jean ! 

An', Jean, our proud friends scorn'd us sair, 

And coost their heads fu' hie — 
They couldna ken twa bodies puir, 

Like senseless thee and me : 
But we had wealth — our hands were good ; 

And wealth to us they've been ; 
And love was sunshine over a', 

My ain — my bonnie Jean ! 

And mind ye, Jean, when we began 

To gather flocks and gear, 
How friends grew up in ilka neuk, 

And came baith far and near ? — 
How we began to gather sense, 

An' wise folk grew, I ween, 



232 GOD IS EVERYWHERE. 

As aye our wealth grew mair an mair, 
My ain — my bonnie Jean ? 

And now around us flourish fair, 

Baith sons and doehters too : 
You're happy in your bairns, glide wife, 

And happy I'm in you ; 
And though your head be growin' gray, 

And dimmer be your een 
Than in our days of blithesome youth, 

You're aye my bonnie Jean. 



GOD IS EVERYWHERE. 

A trodden daisy, from the sward, 

With tearful eye I took, 
And on its ruind glories I, 

With moving heart, did look ; 
For, crush'd and broken though it was, 

That little flower was fair ; 
And oh ! I loved the dying bud — 

For God was there ! 

I stood upon a sea-beat shore — 

The waves came rushing on ; 
The tempest raged in giant wrath — 

The light of day was gone. 
The sailor, from his drowning bark, 

Sent up his dying prayer ; 
I look'd, amid the ruthless storm, 

And God was there ! 



, 



GOD IS EVERYWHERE. 233 

I sought a lonely, woody dell, 

Where all things soft and sweet — 
Birds, flowers, and trees, and running streams— 

'Mid bright sunshine did meet : 
I stood beneath an old oak's shade, 

And summer round was fair ; 
I gazed upon the peaceful scene, 

And God was there ! 

I saw a home — a happy home — 

Upon a bridal day, 
And youthful hearts were blithesome there, 

And aged hearts were gay : — - 
I sat amid the smiling band, 

Where all so blissful were — 
Among the bridal maidens sweet — 

And God was there ! 

I stood beside an infant's couch, 

When light had left its eye— 
I saw the mothers bitter tears, 

I heard her woeful cry — 
I saw her kiss its fair pale face, 

And smooth its yellow hair ; 
And oh ! I loved the Mourner's home, 

For God was there ! 

I sought a cheerless wilderness — 

A desert, pathless, wild — 
Where verdure grew not by the streams, 

Where Beauty never smiled ; — 



234 MY ONLY SISTER. 

Where Desolation brooded o'er 
A muirland lone and bare, — ■ 

And awe upon my spirit crept, 
For God was there ! 

I looked upon the lowly flower, 

And on each blade of grass ; 
Upon the forests, wide and deep, 

I saw the tempests pass : 
I gazed on all created things 

In earth, in sea, and air ; 
Then bent the knee — for God in Love 

Was everywhere ! 



MY ONLY SISTER. 

The wild-flowers, Marg'ret, round thee up are springing, 

And sending forth into the summer sky 

Their pure hearts' incense. LTnto me they seem 

Thy guardian angels, ever watching thee, 

And praying for thee in sweet Nature's voice 

So purely holy ! 

The light of Love is in thine eye, my sister ! 
The open smile of Joy is on thy brow, 
Thy floating hair falls o'er a little heart 
As innocent, as loving, and as pure, 
As e'er on earth was loved with love like mine — 

A brother's love ! 



MY ONLY SISTER. 235 

Fair as the image of a Poet's musings — ■ 
Pure as the dreams of childhood's vision hour — 
Thou art to me ; for thou dost love me so. 
My heart shall never tire of loving thee ; 
And what the heart doth love grows beautiful 

As a pure soul ! 

I would that I the dusky veil could sever 
Which shades the future from my longing sight, 
That I might watch thy onward way through life — 
That I might know how best to save thy heart 
From woe — thy feet from snares — thy eye from tears— 

My darling sister ! 

O ! can that silver light which aye is flowing 

From watching-stars, as flows unfailingly 

A river from its source, which looks upon 

Thy childhood's glee — e'er see thee lone with "Woe, 

A dweller in the dungeon-home of Grief 

With none to comfort ? 

I know not, sister ; but if purity 
Be ever watching o'er thy virgin soul, 
And if thy heart be filled with Steadfastness — 
With Trusting Love — with Truth that knows not guile — 
Grief may be grievous, but thou'lt sternly bear, 

My beautiful ! 

Who spake of Grief ? Can eyes so brightly beaming 
With Love, and Hope, and Joy, be fill'd with tears ? 
There is no heart so hard as do thee wrong, 

a 



236 A DAY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 

Thou art so innocent : So brightly trusting 
Would be thy smile into the face of Pain, 

It could not harm ! 

My sister ! friends may fail, and thy Affections 

On Instability may all be laid : 

But, in thy hour of loneliness, when those 

Thou lovest most have left thee — then through tears 

Remember that thy brothers heart and hand 

Are ever open ! 

The love of all may change ; but his ! — ! never 
While Time is flowing, nor beyond the Grave. 
Dishonour ne'er shall cast its shadow o'er thee 
While life is in his heart : — Thy head shall rest 
For ever on his breast, and he will guard thee 

As doth thy mother ! 



A DAY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 

" Come, sit by your fathers knee, 
My son, 
On the seat by your father's door, 
And the thoughts of your youthful heart, 
My son, 
Like a stream of Gladness pour ; 
For, afar 'mong the lonely hills, 
My son, 
Since the morning thou hast been ; 



A DAY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 237 

Now tell me thy bright day-dreams, 
My son, — 
Yea, all thou hast thought and seen ! " 

" When morn aboon yon eastern hill 

Had raised its glimmering e'e, 
I hied me to the heather hills, 

Where gorcocks crawing flee ; 
And ere the laverock sought the lift, 

Frae out the dewy dens, 
I wandering was by mountain-streams 

In lane and hoary glens. 

" Auld frowning rocks on either hand, 

Uprear'd their heads to Heaven, 
Like temple-pillars which the foot 

Of Time had crush'd and riven ; 
And voices frae ilk mossy stane 

Upon my ear did flow, — 
They spake o' Nature's secrets a' — 

The tales o' long ago. 

" The daisy, frae the burnie's side, 

Was looking up to God — 
The crag that crown'd the towering peak 

Seem'd kneeling on the sod : 
A sound was in ilk dowie glen, 

And on ilk naked rock — 
On mountain-peak — in valley lone — 

And holy words it spoke. 



238 A DAY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 

" The nameless flowers that budded up, 

Each beauteous desert child, 
The heathers scarlet blossoms, spread 

O'er many a lanely wild, — 
The lambkins, sporting in the glens — 

The mountains old and bare — 
Seem'd worshipping ; and there with them 

I breathed my morning prayer. 

" Alang, o'er monie a mountain-taj; — 

Alang, through monie a glen — 
Wi' Nature haudin' fellowship, 

I journey'd far frae men. 
Now suddenly a lonely tarn 

Would burst upon my eye, 
An whiles frae out the solitudes 

Would come the breezes' cry. 

" At noon, I made my grassy couch 

Beside a haunted stream, — 
A bonnie bloomin' bush o' broom 

Waved o'er me in my dream. 
I laid me there in slumberous joy 

Upon the giant knee 
Of yonder peak, that seem'd to bend 

In watching over me. 

" I dream'd a bonnie bonnie dream, 

As sleepin' there I lay : — 
I thought I brightly round me saw 

The fairy people stray. 



A DAY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 2-39 

I dreamt they back again had come 

To live in glen and wold — 
To sport in dells 'neath harvest moons — 

As in the days of old. 

" I saw them dance upo' the breeze, 

An' hide within the flower — 
Sing bonnie and unearthly sangs, 

An* skim the lakelets o'er ! 
That hour the beings o' the past, 

Of ages lost an gone, 
Came back to earth, an' grot an glen 

Were peopled every one ! 

" The vision fled, and I awoke : — 

The sun was sinkin down ; 
The mountain-birds frae hazels brown 

Had sung their gloamin tune ; 
The dew was sleepin' on the leaf, 

The breezes on the flower ; 
And Nature's heart was beating calm,— 

It was the evening hour. 

" And, father, when the moon arose, 

Upon a mountain-height 
I stood and saw the brow of earth 

Bound wi' its silver light. 
Nae sound came on the watching ear 

Upon that silent hill ; 
My e'en were filled with tears, the hour 

Sae holy was and still ! 



240 the widow's child, 

" There was a lowly mound o' green 

Beside me rising there, — 
A pillow where a bairn might kneel, 

And say its twilight prayer. 
The moonlight kiss'd the gladsome flowers ] 

That o'er that mound did wave ; 
Then I remember'd that I stood 

Beside the Martyrs' grave ! 

" I knelt upon that hallo w'd earth, 

While Memory pictured o'er 
The changing scenes — the changing thoughts 

That day had held in store ; 
And then my breast wi' gladness swell'd, 

And God in love did bless, — 
He gave me, 'mong auld Scotland's hills, 

A day of happiness ! " 



THE WIDOW'S CHILD. 

You said my lip was red, Mamma ; 

You said my face was fair ; 
You said my brow was white, Mamma, 
And silken was my hair : 
And you ca'd me your infant lassie sweet, 
While I sat on the green grass at your feet ; 
And you said, while laigh was your tearful mane, 
I was like my father dead and gane : — 
O ! I aye would like to be, Mamma, 



the widow's child. 241 

What thou couldst love fu weel ; 
And ever by your knee 

Your bairn would like to kneel, Mamma, 
Your bairn would like to kneel ! 

Do you mind the summer day, Mamma, 
When through the woods we went — 
When the e'enin' sunlight red, Mamma, 

Wi' the leaves sae green was blent ? — 
And ye showed me the wild-wood birdies a' — 
The Lintie green and the Wren sae sma' ; 
And I heard ilk singer chant its sang, 
The green green leaves and buds amang : 

And ! their sangs were sweet, Mamma, 

And their life was blithe and free ; 
And there's ane I there did meet 
Whilk I would like to be, Mamma, 
Whilk I would like to be ! 

It's no the Lintie green, Mamma, 
And it's no the Robin gray ; 
And it's no the little Wren, Mamma, 

Nor the Mavis on the spray ; 
But O ! it's the bonnie wee Croodlin Doo, 
That churm'd its sang where the beeches grew — 
Wi' its downy wing and its glossy breast, 
And its loving heart, and its forest nest : — 
And though my lip be red, Mamma, 
And though my face be fair, 
I wish my hame were made 

Wi' the bonnie Wild Doo there, Mamma, 
Wi' the bonnie Wild Doo there ! 



242 THE MOUNTAIN ORPHAN. 

If I bad the Wild Doo's wing, Mamma, 

I far awa wad flee, 
Where my father, whom ye mourn, Mamma, 

Is watchin' thee an me ! 
An' I would press his lips to mine, 
As ye aften press my cheek to thine — 
I wad say to him my e'enm* prayer, 
An drop to sleep on his bosom there! 

Syne back your wee Croodlin Doo, Mamma, 

Wad come to its Mither's hand, 
An tidings bring to you 

Of that far an better land, Mamma, 
Of that far an' better land ! 



THE MOUNTAIN ORPHAN. 

A picture of some olden fay — 

A fairy in its charmed ring — 

A creature all delight and joy — 

Is that lone mountain-thing. 

Around her widowed mother's home 

Among the moors she roameth wild : 
Free as their winds — fair as their flowers- 
Is that pure joyous child. 

Calmly at night she resteth here 

Upon her mothers downy knee ; 
And on her breast she sleepeth sweet — 
An orphan infant she. 



THE MOUNTAIN ORPHAN. 243 

And up she riseth in the morn, 

And o'er the wilds she wanders lone, 
And sitteth by their broom-hid streams : 
Companions she hath none. 

Companions ! yes, the grass — the flowers — 

The sunlight blithe — the heather brown — 
The very moss that on the moors 

The wind-beat crags doth crown — 

The living stars that gem the sky — 

The gales that soothing murmur on — 
The golden broom — are unto her 
Companions every one ! 

The grass springs freshly up where she 

The long, long summer-day is playing ; 
The flow'rets nod their heads in joy 

Where she is blithely straying. 

Yea that old moorland desert wild 
That in its hoary age doth rest, 
Seems smiling softly while she sits 
Upon its rugged breast. 

When on the hills that little maid 

Is straying while her song she sings, 
The gladness of her little heart 

Through Nature's silence rings. 

The glens and stream-banks are her home, 
And Nature is a nurse to her ; 



244 THE MOUNTAIN ORPHAN. 

The sounds that from her bosom come 
Her infant spirit stir. 

O'er moor, through glen, by rushy pool, 

Untended still she seems to go ; 
But God doth watch that infant's feet 
While wandering to and fro. 

Sweet moorland child ! my heart hath leapt 

While gazing on each sunny tress, 
Thy glowing face, thy sparkling eyes, 
Thy simple happiness. 

The joy of hearts that know no guile 

Hath shed its glory oyer thee : 
Thou art — what great and wise are not — 
As happy as a bee. 

Yea, many, who, to gather gold 

And hoary wisdom, long have toil'd, 
Would wish to be again like thee, 

Thou pure and happy child. 

The mountain-winds have taught thee joy; 

The flowers have taught thee purity; 
Love, Hope, and Truth, the lips of earth 
Have sweetly taught to thee. 

Child of the mountains ! may Deceit 

Ne'er darken that blithe heart of thine ! 
May thou aye be a star of love 

Upon this earth of ours to shine ! 



the mother's monody. 245 

May God aye guard thee, infant sweet ! 

While on the moorlands thou dost tarry, 
And keep thee in thy mother's home, 

Thou bright young mountain fairy ! 



THE MOTHER'S MONODY. 

! she was the joy of her fathers home — 
The light of her mother's eye : 

Yet she moulders now in the lonesome grave ; 

For the pure and good can die. 
She was more akin to the Land above 

Than the tearful Earth below ; 
And there lives not a fairer spirit now 

In the bliss she hath wander'd to. 

1 saw her bud, like a precious flower, 
From infancy to youth, 

As fair and pure as the rosy sky 
Of the bright and fragrant South ; 

And I saw her loved in her father's house, 
With a love earth ne'er surpass'd : 

And I saw Decay, drear, dark, and cold^ 
O'er her youth its blighting cast. 

But ! she murmur'd not to leave 
This earth and the dwellers there, 

Her parents loved or her sisters young, 
With whom she had knelt in prayer : 



246 the mother's monody. 

But she droop'd with a smile upon her brow, 

Which meekly seem'd to say, 
Why weep ye, mother dear, for me ? 

It is best to be away ! 

And she would chant the lovesome songs 

She had wont in joy to sing ; 
Their tones doth yet in her mother's ear 

With a woeful cadence ring : 
And she would kiss the cheek and lip 

Of her sisters, loved so well ; 
And the joys of yon future Land of Love 

To their infant ears would tell. 

! I saw her wither day by day, 
And nightly saw her pine ; 

Yet I could not save — was e'er a lot 
So woeful sad as mine ? 

1 saw her grow more beauteous still, 

As the day of death came near, 

Till my daughter a spotless angel was 

Ere she left her dwelling here ! 

And the last sad glance from her dear dark eye, 

On her grieving parents fell ; 
And she was away to the Better Land 

She had ever loved so well : 
And her sisters wept ; and her fathers eyes 

With tears of grief were full ; 
But they forgot, — while her mother's heart 

Remembers her daughter still ! 



MY LILY. 247 

O ! I had hoped that her kindly hand 

My dying eyes should close ; 
That upon my grave she would often sit 

Where the grass of the churchyard grows ; 
And when long, long years had pass'd away, 

And her hour of death had come, 
That her mother's voice in that better Land 

Should welcome her daughter home ! 

But I am left in this vale of tears, 

And she to the Good hath gone ; 
And my daughters eye, 'mid her holiness, 

My grief is looking on : 
And I would weep, for my heart is sore ; 

But her soul would my sorrow see ; 
And I dry my tears, and I seek to go, 

My Mary, unto thee ! 



MY LILY. 



Ae modest, winsome, little flower 

Within a humble garden grew ; 
It cheered a lonely woman's hame — ■ 

But cauld decay the flower did pu'. 
My orphan bairn, my only ane, 

Ran round her widowed mother's knee, 
And sleepit on her mother's breast 

Yet she is reft awa' frae me ! 



248 MY LILY. 

Fu' meek and gentle was her face 5 

And sweeter far my lassie's heart ; 
She wasna made for care or toil — 

Her saft, laigh voice, has made me start : 
She was my last ; but pale she grew — 

Pale as the summer's fading day : 
I grat in secret ; for I saw 

My Lily fading fast away ! 

She couldna sleep when winds were bauld, 

And frost was hard upon the yird ; 
She couldna die till spring came green, 

And singing was each happy bird. 
When flowers were busking everywhere, 

And blackbirds sang in dean and shaw, 
Like the last breath of Even's wind 

My Lily faded fast awa' ! 

And then they tried to comfort me, 

And hard and bitter words they spake, 
And said it was a sinfu' thing 

To greet and mane for Lily's sake. 
I greet not now — this is her grave — 

Earth has ae pleasure yet for me ; 
For I can sleep, and I can dream 

That Lily's come again to me. 



THE PRIMROSE, 249 



THE PRIMROSE. 



The milk-white blossoms of the thorn 

Are waving o'er the pool, 
Moved by the wind that breathes along 

So sweetly and so cool. 
The hawthorn clusters bloom above. 

The primrose hides below, 
And on the lonely passer by 

A modest glance doth throw ! 

The humble Primrose' bonnie face — 

I meet it everywhere ; 
Where other flowers disdain to bloom 

It comes and nestles there. 
Like God's own light, on every place 

In glory it doth fall : 
And where its dwelling-place is made, 

It straightway hallows all ! 

Where'er the green-winged linnet sings 

The Primrose bloometh lone ; 
And love it wins — deep love — from all 

Who gaze its sweetness on. 
On field-paths narrow, and in woods 

We meet thee near and far, 
Till thou becomest prized and loved. 

As things familiar are ! 



250 THE NAMELESS RIVULET. 

The stars are sweet at eventide, 

But cold, and far away ; 
The clouds are saft in summer time, 

But all unstable they : 
The rose is rich — but pride of place 

Is far too high for me — 
God's simple common things I love — 

My Primrose, such as thee ! 

I love the fireside of my home, 

Because all sympathies, 
The feelings fond of every day, 

Around its circle rise. 
And while admiring all the flowers 

That Summer suns can give, 
Within my heart the Primrose sweet, 

In lowly love doth live ! 



THE NAMELESS RIVULET. 

We met within a Highland glen — 

"Where, wandering to and fro 
Amid the rushes and the broom, 

A pilgrim thou didst go. 
Tripping betwixt thy gowany banks 

I heard thy tinkling feet, 
While with thy solitary voice 

The primrose thou didst greet ! 



THE NAMELESS RIVULET. 251 

Then, nameless stream, I imaged thee 

A pure and happy child, 
Whose soul is filled with guileless love, 

Its brain with fancies wild ; 
Which wanders 'mid the haunts of men, 

Through suffering, care, and fear, 
Pouring its waking thoughts and dreams 

In Nature's faithful ear ! 

Like brothers, streamlet, forth we fared, 

Upon a July morn, 
And left behind us rocky steep, 

And mountain wastes forlorn. 
Where'er thy murmuring footstep strayed, 

Along with thee I went ; 
Thy haunts were Nature's fanes, and I 

Was therewith well content. 

Adown by meadows green we roved, 

Where children sweet were playing, 
We glided through the glens of green, 

Where lambkins fair were straying. 
We lingered where thy lofty banks 

Were clad with bush and tree, 
And where the linnet's sweetest song 

Was sung to welcome thee. 

Then came the forest dark and deep ; 

As through its shade we went 
The leaves and boughs, with foliage bowed, 

Were with thy waters blent. 



252 THE NAMELESS RIVULET. 

And through the leafy veil the sun 

Fell lone, and fitfully, 
To kiss thy waves, that from the hills 

Came flowing on with me. 

And when we left the wild- wood's shade, 

From fields of ripened grain 
The reapers' song came sweetly down, 

And thine replied again. 
Away we went by hut and hall, 

Away by cottage lone, 
Now lingering by a patch of wood, 

Now moving heedless on ! 

Where praying monks had been we passed, 

And all was silent there, 
Save when thy voice the echoes waked, 

Which heard the hermit's prayer. 
We passed by thickets green and old, 

By craggy rocks so steep, 
And o'er leaf-shadow'd waterfalls, 

We cheerily did leap ! 

And then a spot upon us burst, 

Where hills on either side 
Hose up, all clad in coppice-wood, 

Which rock and steep did hide. 
The ivy clasp d each stone and bush 

Thou flow'dst along between ; 
While rock and river, bird and flower, 

Filled up the glorious scene. 



THE NAMELESS RIVULET. 252 

By happy homes of toiling men, 

We this sweet day have passed, 
And have enjoyed each sight and sound, 

As though it were our last : 
And now we loiter lazily 

Beneath the setting sun :— 
My journey ends when starlight conies, 

Thine is not well begun ! 

Now, Highland streamlet, ere we part, 

Which didst thou loye the best 
Of all we've seen since, silently, 

We left thy Highland nest ? 
Lovest thou best the meadow green, 

Or Highland valley gray ? 
Or lovest thou best by hazel braes, 

At eventide to stray ? 

Or dost thou love where forest trees 

Thy little waves are laving ? 
Or wealthy fields, where golden grain, 

Ripe, to the sun, is waving ? 
The rustle of thy fleety foot, 

Upon my ear doth fall — 
Thou stream, like this full heart of mine, 

Dost dearly love them all ! 

Without a name, and all unknown, 

Fair streamlet, though thou art, 
Be still unchristen'd ! but I'll keep 

Thy murmurs in my heart. 



254 THE BRAMBLE. 

My story of thy pilgrimage 
Will to the careless tell, 

How much of love and beauty in 
Unnoted things do dwell. 



THE BRAMBLE. 

Be the Bramble in the berry, 

Or be it in the flower, — 
Or be it bare of leaf and bud 

Waved by the winter shower ; 
That creeping bush that lowly is, 

As lowly well can be, 
It hath a charm — a history — 

A tale that pleases me ! 

When black grew bramble-berries, 

Some twenty years ago, 
The dawning often saw us set 

Where mountain waters flow ; 
And when the gruesome gloaming came 

To keek into our creel, 
It found a fouth o* spotted trout 

Whilk we had tackled weel ! 

The bramble-berries were our food, 

And water was our wine, 
The linnet to the self-same bush 

Came after us to dine. 



ALICE. 255 

As down the glen at e'en we gaed, 

The lammies round us bleated, 
And we, wi' blithesome hearts, their word 

To ilka rock repeated ! 

And when awa we used to gang 

By fieldpaths green and lane, 
The bramble flower' d beside our feet, 

And mantled tree and stane ; 
And wi' the hedgerow, oak, and thorn, 

Its branches twisted were, 
That scarcely through the wall of leaves^ 

Could breathe the caller air ! 

Then be the bramble-berry blacky k 

Or be it in the flower, 
I love its humble lowliness; 

For sake o' days run ower ; 
And grow it in the woods sae green, 

Or grow it on the brae, 
I like to meet the Bramble Bush 

Where'er my footsteps gae I 



ALICE.* 



My breast is press'd to thine, Alice, 
My arm is round thee twined ; 

* These lines were addressed by Nicoll to his wife. They were sent 
from Leeds to a friend in Edinburgh, some time after his marriage, and 
have never appeared till now. 



2 56 ALICE. 

Thy breath dwells on my lip, Alice, 

Like clover-scented wind : 
Love glistens in thy sunny e'e, 

And blushes on thy brow ; 
Earth's Heaven is here to thee and me, 

For we are happy now ! 

Thy cheek is warm and saft, Alice, 

As the summer laverock's breast ; 
And Peace sleeps in thy soul, Alice, 

Like the laverock on its nest ! 
Sweet ! lay thy heart aboon my heart, 

For it is a! thine ain ; 
That morning love it gi'es to thee, 

Which kens nae guile or stain ! 

Ilk starn in yonder lift, Alice, 

Is a love-lighted e'e, 
FilPd fu' o' gladsome tears, Alice, 

While watching thee and me. 
This twilight hour the thoughts run back, 

Like moonlight on the streams, 
Till the o'erladen heart grows grit 

Wi' a* its early dreams ! 

Langsyne amang the hills, Alice, 
Where wave the breckans green, 

I wander'd by the burn, Alice, 
Where fairy feet had been, — 

While o'er me hung a vision sweet, 
My heart will ne'er forget — 



ALICE. 257 



A dream o' Summer- twilight times 
When flowers wi' dew were wet ! 



I thought on a' the tales, Alice, 

O' Woman's love and faith; 
Of Truth that smiled at Fear, Alice, 

And Love that conquer' d Death; 
Affection blessing hearts and homes, 

When joy was far awa' 
And Fear and Hate ; but Love, Love ! 

Aboon and over a' ! 

And then I thought wi' me, Alice, 

Ane walk'd in beauty there — 
A being made for love, Alice, 

So pure, and good, and fair — 
Who shared my soul — my every hour 

O' sorrow and o' mirth ; 
And when that dream was gone, my heart 

Was lonely on the earth ! 

Ay, lonely grew the world, Alice — 

A dreary hame to me ; 
Without a bush or bield, Alice, 

Or leafy sheltering tree ; 
And aye as sough' d life's raging storm, 

Wi' keen and eerie blaw, 
My soul grew sad, and cold my heart, 

I wish'd to be awa'. 

But light came o'er my way, Alice, 
And life grew joy to me ; 



258 ALICE. 

The daisy in my path, Alice, 

Unclosed its gentle e'e ; 
Love breatk'd in ilka wind that blew, 

And in ilk birdie's sang; 
Wi' sunny thoughts o* summer time 

The blithesome heart grew thrang. 

My dreams o' youth and love, Alice, 

Were a' brought back again ; 
And Hope upraised its head, Alice, 

Like the violet after rain : 
A sweeter maid was by my side 

Than things of dreams can be, 
First, precious love to her I gave, 

And, Alice, thou wert she ! 

Nae lip can ever speak, Alice, 

Nae tongue can ever tell, 
The sumless love for thee, Alice, 

With which my heart doth swell ! 
Pure as the thoughts of infants' souls, 

And innocent and young ; 
Sic love was never tauld in sangs, 

Sic sangs were never sung ! 

My hand is on thy heart, Alice, 
Sae place thy hand in mine ; 

Now, welcome weal and woe, Alice, 
Our love we canna tine. 

Ae kiss ! let others gather gowd 
Frae ilka land and sea ; 



THE DYING MAIDEN. 250 



My treasure is the richest yet, 
For, Alice, I hae thee ! 



THE DYING MAIDEN. 

The winds are soughin' o'er the hills, 

The burns come gushin doun — 
The kelpie in the drumlie weil 

Is singin his eerie croon ! 
Sae sharp an* cauld the nippin' sleet 

Blaws o'er the leafless lea, 
An' Death, frae out the darksome grave, 

Is callin' upon me ! 

! mither, stand ye at my head- 
Gang, sister, to my feet ; 

An, "Willie, sit by my bedside, 
But dinna moan an' greet. 

1 would like to look on those I love, 
Sae lang as I can see, — 

As the snaw-drap fades 'mang the lave awa', 
Sae I would like to dee ! 

! this is a bright an' glorious earth. 
An I ha'e lo'ed it weel — 

1 ha'e lo'ed to sleep on my mither's breast, 
By my mither's knee to kneel : 

An* I ha'e lo'ed thee, sister fair, 
Wi' mair than a sister s love ; 



260 THE DYING MAIDEN. 

An' how I lo'ed thee, Willie dear, 
The Angels ken above ! 

An' I ha'e dream' d o' comin' years, 

When ane we twa should be, — 
When Grief should sadden, Joy rejoice 

Alike baith thee an' me — 
When we should bear ae heart, ae hope, 

Ae burden, an' ae name ; 
An' gang a-field thegither aye, 

An come thegither hame ! 

An I ha'e dream'd o' bairnies fair, 

Wi' een as blithe as thine — 
An' hair like gowd, an' rosie lips, 

An lovin' hearts like mine : 
An I ha'e heard their voices sweet 

Say "Mither!" unto me, 
An seen them turn an', smilin', say, 

"My Father!" unto thee! 

An', Willie, ae fond wish ha'e I — 

Though I would like awa' — 
To live, that I my love for thee 

Sae measureless might shaw. 
My love for thee ! it can be known 

To mine own heart alone, — 
A star o' love an' gladness, thou 

For ever o'er me shone ! 

My voice is wearin' faint an' low ; 
Sae, Willie, ere I gang, 



A WOODLAND WALK. 261 

You'll promise me, when I am laid 

The kirkyard yird amang, 
To come at e'en, when o'er the glen 

The birks their shadows cast, 
An' sit upon my grave, an' think 

0' me an' moments past. 

Awa', awa', to yonder Land, 

My soul is wearm now ; 
But mid yon Holiness an' Joy, 

I'll aye be watchin' you. 
An', if alane ye e'er be left, 

In sickness or in wae, 
Mind, Willie, that a Spirit's hand 

Doth lead ye night an' day. 

Kiss ance again this burnin brow ; 

An' let me look upon 
The lip — the cheek — the hazel eye 

I've prized in moments gone ! 
My mither ! ope the casement wide 

That I may see the lea 
"Where gowans grow : — The Gates of Light 

Are open now to me ! 



A WOODLAND WALK. 

The blackbird's song is bursting from the brake. 
And morning breezes bear it far away ; 



262 A WOODLAND WALK. 

The early sunbeam from its breast doth shake 
The floating veil of dewy mist so gray ; 
The dun deer wanders, like a frightened fay, 

Through dingles deep and wild, where linnets sing; 
Ah ! who would slumber, who along can stray, 

Where mighty oaks their branches o'er him fling, 
To which the diamond dew, in pearlings bright, doth cling ? 

How beautiful ! — the green corn-fields are waving, 
The clouds of dawn are floating on the sky ; 

The fearful hare its hidden couch is leaving, 
And, sporting, to the clover-field doth hie : 
Beneath the morning sun the waters lie, 

Like treasur'd sunbeams in a woody nook ! 
God's earth is glorious ; and how bless'd am I 

Who love it all? On what I love I look, 
And joy runs through my heart, like yon calm, tinkling 
brook. 

The cottage-hearths are cold, the peasants sleeps, 
But all the mighty woodlands are awake ; 

Within its hermitage the primrose sleeps, 

And with the dew the beech-trees' branches shake, 
As through the wood my devious path I take ; 

The velvet grass a fairy carpet seems, 

On which, through leafy curtains, light doth break, 

Now bright and strong, and now in fitful gleams, 
As 'mid realities come fancy's fairest dreams. 

Now stooping 'neath the branches wet with dew — 
Now o'er the open forest-glades I go — 



A WOODLAND WALK. 203 

Now listening to the cushat's wailing coo- 
Now starting from its lair the bounding roe ; 
And now I hear the breezes, to and fro, 

Making among the leaves a pleasant din ; 
Or find myself where silent streamlets flow, 

Like hermits, wandering these wild-woods within— 
While hoar and aged trees bend o'er each little linn. 

The lakelet of the forest I have left, 

Sleeping, like beauty, in a branchy bower : 

The woodland opens : — Crumbling 'all, and cleft, 
There stands the ruin'd Abbey's lonely tower, 
To speak of vanish'd pomp, exhausted power — . 

To hear these winds among the leaflets blow 
"With the same tone as in its proudest hour — 

To see the flowers within the forest grow, 
As when the fallen reigned — a thousand years ago ! 

Decaying, roofless walls ! and is this all 
That Desolation's blighting hand hath left 

Of tower, and pinnacle, and gilded hall ? 
The everlasting rocks by time are cleft— 
Within each crevice spiders weave their weft ; 

The wandering gipsy comes to hide him here, 

When he from plunder'd housewife's stores has reft 

The needful elements of gipsy cheer; 
For ghost of Abbot old the gipsy doth not fear. 

Where are the glancing eyes that here have beam'd ? 

Where are the hearts which whilom here have beat? 
Where are the shaven monks, so grim who seem'd? 

Where are the sitters in the Abbot's seat ? 



264: A WOODLAND WALK. 

Where are the ceaseless and unnoted feet, 
That wore a pavement-path with kneeling prayers ? 
Where is the coffin — where the winding sheet — 
And monuments which nobles had for theirs, 
When death drew nigh, and closed life's long account of 
cares ? 

The ivy clings around the ruin'd walls 

Of cell, and chapel, and refectory ; 
An oak-tree's shadow, cloud-like, ever falls 

Upon the spot where stood the altar high : 

The chambers all are open to the sky ; 
A goat is feeding where the praying knelt ; 

The daisy rears its ever open eye 
Where the proud Abbot in his grandeur dwelt : 
These signs of time and change the hardest heart might melt. 

Is this a cell ? — Offended God to serve 

By the heart's crucifixion, here have tried 
Self-immolated men, who would not swerve, 

But in the impious work serene have died : 

A glory on the lowly wall doth bide, 
For though the hypocrite hath shuffled here, 

Here, too, from earnest lips did often glide 
The words of men mistaken, but sincere, 
Who, with pure spirits, tried to fight man's battle here. 

The buttercups are lifting up their heads 

Upon the floor of the confessional, 
Where came the worshipper, with counted beads, 

Upon his knees in penitence to fall — 



A WOODLAND WALK. 265 

"Where came the great to listen unto all, 
And scoff or pray, as good or ill was he. 

Could words come forth of that time-stricken wall, 
Some wondrous tales retold again would be : 
The maiden's simple love — the feat of villany. 

This is the chapel where the matin hymn 

Was chanted duly for a thousand years, 
Till faith grew cold and doubtful — truth grew dim — 

Till earnest hope was wither'd up by sneers. 
Within it now no glorious thing appears : 

But as the dewy wind blows sweetly by, 
Upon the thoughtful list'ner's joyful ears 

Doth come a sweet and holy symphony, 
And Nature's choristers are chanting masses high ! 

Grow up, sweet daisies, on the silent floor ; 

Fall down, dark ivy, over every wall ; 
Oak, send thy branches out at every door ; 

Goat, from its chambers to thy mate do call, 

Power reign'd in might, and never fear d a fall, 
And where is it ? And what is here to-day ? 

Truth triumphs over mitre, crown, and all ; 
Mind rent its iron fetters all away — 
The tyrants, proud and high — where, at this hour, are 

they? 

Old walls and turrets, moulder silently, 

Till not a trace of all your state remain ! 

The throstle's song, from yonder spreading tree, 
Doth call me to the woodlands once again ; 



266 A WOODLAND WALK. 

Louder doth rise the blackbird's passing strain, 
And gladness from its sacred heart doth flow, 

Till music falls, like summer's softest rain, 
On all that lives and suffers here below, 

Making a flower upon the lonest pathway grow. 

The sun is higher in the morning sky — 

His beams embrace the mossy-trunked trees ; 

Yonder the squirrel, on the elm so high, 

Frisketh about in the cool morning breeze — 
Down peeps his diamond eye — amazed, he sees 

A stranger in his solitary home ; 

And now he hides behind the oaken trees — 

And now he forth upon a branch doth come, 
To crack his beechen-nuts, and watch me as I roam. 

The hawthorn hangs its clusters round me now, 

Through which the sky peeps sweetly, sweetly in ; 
Through the green glades doth come the cattle's low 

From the rich pastures of the meadow green. 

Look up ! — aloft, the twittering birds are seen 
Upon the branches, their wild matins singing : 

Look down ! the grass is soft and thick, I ween ; 
And flowers around each old tree-root are springing, 
Wood-fancies, wild and sweet, to the lone wanderer 
bringing. 

And here are rich blaeberries, black and wild, 

Beneath the beech-tree's thickest branches growing; 

This makes me once again a wayward child, 
A pilgrimage into the woodland going — 



A WOODLAND WALK. 287 

The haunt of squirrel and of wood-mouse knowing, 
And plucking black blaeberries all the day, 

Till eastward mountain-shadows night was throwing, 
And sending me upon my homeward way, 
Fill'd, both in soul and sense, with the old forest gray. 

I must away, for I have loiter'd long 

Amid the wood, and by the ruins old : 
I must away, for far the sky along 

The sun doth pour his beams of brightest gold. 

Farewell, sweet glades, wild dingles, grassy wold— - 
Squirrel and blackbird, linnet and throstle, too — 

Farewell, ye woodland streamlets, pure and cold — ■ 
Sweet cooing cushat — primrose wet with dew — 
To woodland thoughts and things a sweet, a short adieu !* 



* It may be proper to mention, that this poem, like all those com- 
posed in the last busy and suffering year of Nicoll's life, is written in 
pencil ; and is what he must have considered unfinished. Yet the 
Editor could not feel justified in suppressing a composition so rich in 
descriptive beauty, that it all but rivals some of his Scottish moorland 
landscapes. 



PART V. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



THOMAS CLARKSON.* 

Man of the bold, brave heart ! 
God gifted thee with steraless will to dare, 
And to achieve. Men ne'er successless were 
Who, with thy great endeavour, join'd a pure, 
High, holy heart like thine, that could endure 
Hatred, and scorn, and toil that would have crush' d 
A weak, despairing spirit to the dust. 

And now ! 
Time tells thy name unto Eternity ; — 
A noble man reveal' d, 
Thy soul of light unseai'd, 
Thy life a battle-field, 
Where fearless manhood set a race from bondage free ! 



* This poem was sent to Laverock Bank with the following note, 
and, after NicolPs death, was published in Taifs Magazine, in an article 
relating to Clarkson : — " The foregoing lines were suggested by the story 

Mrs. J told me on Saturday of Clarkson. When Wilberforce asked 

him if ever he thought of the welfare of his soul, he answered — * I can 
think of nothing save those poor slaves in the West Indies.' " 



THOMAS CLARKSON. 269 

Man of the dauntless soul ! 
Great in resistless goodness as was He 

Who came like summer forth of Galilee ! 

Who saves one living thing is ever bless' d ; 
Good actions soothe, like angel songs, his rest ; 
And good men worship round the hero's grave, 
Who lived and died one land of earth to save ! 



But thou ! 
Found a whole race of God-created men 
Slaves, bound and scourged, and vile with every stain- 

And now 
They tell what one soul-strengthen'd man can do ! 
That race is fetterless 
Thou pitiedst in distress ; 
Thee, saviour, they bless, 
Great, Christ-like, pure and holy, good and true ! 

Man of the stainless life ! 
True hearts adore thy faithful Earnestness, 
Thy Hope, that, 'midst all trials, ne'er grew less 9 
Thy thoughtful Love that hatred never quench' d, 
And perseverance ; — power that would have wrench'd 
Aught good thy heart desired from Fortune's hand : — 
Chance, Fate, and Change, determin'd men command : 

But thou ! 
Hadst nobler aims than those the foolish prize ; 
Lov'dst mightier deeds than little men devise ! 

And now, 



2?0 THOUGHTS AND FANCIES. 

Giver of Freedom, who shall stand with thee ? 
Greater than throned kings, 
Time o'er thy memory flings 
Glorious imaginings ! 

A countless race arise and say, He made us free I 



THOUGHTS AND FANCIES. 

MILTON. A SONNET. 

Blind, glorious, aged Martyr, Saint, and Sage ! 

The Poet's mission God reveal' d to thee, 

To lift men's souls to Him — to make them Free ;- 
With Tyranny and Grossness war to wage — 
A worshipper of Truth and Love to be — 

To reckon all things nought but these alone ; — 
To nought but Mind and Truth to bow the knee — 

To make the soul a love-exalted throne ! 
Man of the noble spirit ! — Milton, thou 

All this didst do ! A living type thou wert 
Of what the soul of man to be may grow — 

The pure perfection of the love-fraught heart ! 
Milton ! from God's right hand, look down and see 
For these, how men adore and honour thee ! 



THE MORNING STAR. 271 



DESPONDENCY. A SONNET. 



" Shall I be cmsli'd, 
While in Eternity there's standing-room ?" 

! I am weary of this grief-fraught life, 
With all its burthens of down-crushing care — 
Its joyless peace — its ever-shouting strife — 
Its day dark-clouded, even when most fair : 

1 wish this weary spirit were away 

From all this Change, and Woe, and empty Noise, 

Where Grief comes often, and where Gladness cloys- 
Where Friendship changes, and where Love doth lay 
Its trust on shadows— yea, where Hope doth glow 

To burn the heedless heart it shineth on — 
Where Disappointment, clad in garb of snow, 

Snatches our hoped-for Blessings every one ! 
Cold Earth ! I'll lay me down upon thy breast, 
And dying, go to God, and be at rest ! 



THE MORNING STAR. 

Thy smile of beauty, Star ! 
Brings gladness on the gloomy face of night — 

Thou comest from afar, 
Pale Mystery ! so lonely and so bright, 
A thing of dreams — a vision from on high — 
A virgin spirit — light — a type of purity ! 



2?2 THE MORNING STAR. 

Star ! nightly wanderest tbou 
Companionless along thy far, cold way : — 

From Time's first breath till now, 
On thou hast flitted like an ether-fay ! 
Where is the land from whence thou first arose ; 
And where the place of light to which thy pathway 
goes? 

Pale Dawn's first messenger ! 
Thou prophet-sign of brightness yet to be ! 

Thou tellest Earth and Air 
Of Light and Glory following after thee ; 
Of smiling Day 'mong wild green woodlands sleeping ; 
And God's own sun, o'er all, its tears of brightness 
weeping ! 

Sky sentinel ! when first 
The Nomade Patriarch saw thee from his hill 

Upon his vision burst, 
Thou wast as pure and fair as thou art still ; 
And changeless thou hast looked on race, and name, 
And nation, lost since then — but Thou art yet the same ! 

Night's youngest child ! fair gem ! — 
The hoar astrologer o'er thee would cast 

His glance, and to thy name 
His own would join ; then tremble when thou wast 
In darkness ; and rejoice when, like a bride, 
Thou blush'd to Earth — and thus the dreamer dreamed 
and died ! 



THE MORNING STAR. 273 

Pure Star of Morning Love ! 
The daisy of the sky's blue plain art thou ; 

And thoughts of youth are wove 
Round thee, as round the flowers that freshly blow 
In bushy dells, where thrush and blackbird sing — 
Flower-Star, the dreams of youth and heaven thou back 
dost bring ! 

Star of the Morn ! for thee 
The watcher by affection's couch doth wait ; 

'Tis thine the bliss to see 
Of lovers fond who 'mid the broom have met : 
Into the student's home thine eye doth beam ; 
Thou listenest to the words of many a troubled dream ! 

Lone thing ! — yet not more lone 
Than many a heart which gazeth upon thee, 

With hopes all fled and gone — 
Which loves not now, nor seeks beloved to be. 
Lone, lone thou art — but we are lonelier far, 
When blighted by deceit the heart's affections are ! 

Mysterious Morning Star ! 
Bright dweller in a gorgeous dreamy home, 

Than others nobler far — 
Thou art like some free soul, which here hath come 
Alone, but glorious, pure, and disenthrall' d — 
A spark of Mind, which God through earth to heaven 
hath call'd ! 

Pure Maiden Star ! shine on, 
That dreams of beauty may be dream'd of thee ! 



274 the exile's song. 

A home art thou — a throne — 
A land where fancy ever roameth free — 
A God-sent messenger — a light afar — 
A blessed beam — a smile — a gem — the Morning Star ! 



THE EXILE'S SONG. 

This land is rich — baith tree an' bower, 
An' hill an plain, are cover'd o'er 
Wi' flowers o' monie, monie dyes, 
Till maist it seems a paradise, 
Where Love an' Beauty make their hame 
Beside ilk flowin' silver stream : — 
I ken the land is heavenlie : 
But ! it's no my ain countrie ! 

Thae hills are green : — nae heather there 
"Waves in the caller mornin' air ; — 
Fu' pleasantly thae streamlets rin ; 
But ! they want the cheerfu' din 
O' name's sweet burns, that ever sung 
To me my ain, my mountain tongue : — 

I ken the land is fair to see ! 

But O ! it's no my ain countrie ! 

The bonnet doesna hap the brow — 
The plaid ie wraps na bosoms true — 
The harp's sweet tones 'mang echoes stray 
Where I would like the pipes to play — 



THE DEATH-SONG OF HOFER. 

The nightingale sings a' night lang 
Where I would like the throstle's sang : — 
The land is fair as fair can be — 
But ! it's no my ain countrie ! 

When Mirth's warm voice is laughin hie 
The groan o' Care doth danton me — 
I canna rest, I canna smile, 
Awa frae yonder rocky isle : 
An exile's waefu' fate is mine, 
Wha for his hame doth ever pine : — 
My heart is sick, an* I will dee 
If I win na to my ain countrie ! 



ilo 



THE DEATH-SONG OF HOFER, 

My hour of life is nearly past, — 

I shrink not from my doom : 
The men of many lands will make 

A pilgrim-shrine my tomb ; 
My name will be in coming time 

The watchword of the Free ; 
The mountains of my rugged home 

My monuments will be. 

I have not borne a tyrant's thrall, 

But stood for liberty — 
Among our mountains and our rocks, 

Where slaves can never be : 



270 THE SWISS MOTHER TO HER SON. 

I stood, as stood the Switzer bold, 
When Uri's horn did swell, — 

I fought, I bled — my name will live 
With that of William Tell. 

Death I what is death in freedom's cause ?— 

For thee, mine own Tyrol, 
Had I a thousand, thousand lives, 

Oh ! I would give the whole. 

I die, as men should proudly do, 

For Home and Liberty, — 
I sow the seed that yet shall grow 

And make my country free. 

Farewell, my craggy native hills, 

My children all, farewell : 
That Hofer was your father's name 

Full proudly ye may tell. 
Farewell, ye mountains heart-enshrined,— 

God ! shield a Freeman's soul ! 
I die in joy — I die for thee — 

My own — my wild Tyrol. 



THE SWISS MOTHER TO HER SON. 

" Fleet is thy foot, my only son ; 

Thou art a mountain child ; 
Thy mother's breasts have suckled thee 

'Mid rocks and deserts wild — 



THE SWISS MOTHER TO HER SON. 277 

Where shouting winds the echoes deep 

In dells and caves awoke — 
Where every sound to Heaven that rose 
Of Freedom spoke I 

" Look up, my son ! yon cloud-crown'd rock 

Is mantled o'er with snow ; 
And from its breast the avalanche 

Careering down doth go ! 
Look down ! a thousand pleasant vales 

Are sleeping 'neath thine eye, 
And happy homes where Alpine streams 
Are rushing by ! 

" Look round, my son ! your mother's cot 

Is peeping from the trees ; — 
Your sister, in its rose-wreath'd porch, 

Is kneeling on her knees ! 
Look on our lightning-riven peaks — 

Our mountain-pastures lone ! — 
My only son ! what land of earth 
Is like thine own ? 

" My noble boy, for such a land 

Who would not dare and die ? — 
My son ! — I see thy swelling breast — 

I see thy flashing eye ! — 
Thy drink has been the mountain-stream, 

Thou chamois-hunter free ! 
Thou'rt worthy, like thy sire, to die 
For Liberty ! 



278 THE SWISS MOTHER TO HER SON. 

" My son ! a field is lost and won — 
A field for Freedom fought ; — 

The herdsmen of our thousand hills 
A mighty work have wrought : 

But mail-clad are the Tyrants yet, 
And mighty is the foe ! 

Arouse thee, then, brave youth, and cry, 
'ForUri, ho!' 

" My son ! thy father lifeless lies ; 

But yet no tear I shed ! 
When we are free, thy mother, boy, 

Will mourn the glorious dead ! 
And thou ! — go take thy father's sword — 

To battle, with the free ! 
And fall or conquer, like thy sire, 
For Home and me !" 

" He hath buckled on his father's sword — 

My own, my noble boy — 
He hath turn'd him to the Switzer camp 

With all a freeman's joy. 
O ! hearts like his and hands like his 

Will free our mountains gray ! — 

My daughter, with thy mother kneel, 

For him to pray!" 



THE GERMAN BALLAD-SINGER. 279 



THE GERMAN BALLAD-SINGER. 

Like a passing bird with a sweet wild song, 

Thou hast come to my native land ; 
And amid the noisy crowded streets 

Of the stranger thou dost stand : 
And thou pourest forth a ballad lay 

Of the land where the laden vine 
Dips its rich, ripe fruit and its sheltering leaves 

In thine own beloved Rhine. 

'Tis a tale of the deeds of other times— 

Of the proud high hearts of old ; 
Which thy mother thine infant eyes to close, 

At the gloamin often told : 
Of a craggy steep, and a castle strong — 

Of a warder drunk with wine ; 
And a valorous knight, and his ladye-love, — 

By thine own beloved Rhine. 

Proud singer ! I see thy flashing eyes,— 

Thou art thinking on that river ; 
The rush of its waters deep and strong 

Shall dwell in thine ears for ever : 
Thou art sitting in dreams by that stream afar, 

And a fresh, bright wreath you twine 
Of the happy flowers that for ever blow, 

By thine own beloved Rhine. 



2S0 tiie mother's memories of 

Thou hast changed thy song to a soft low strain, 

And thy cheeks are wet with tears ; 
The home of thy youth, in thy fatherland, 

'Neath its sheltering tree appears ! — 
And thou seest thy parents far away, 

And thy sister, loved like mine ; 
O ! they long for thee as thou for them 

And thine own beloved Rhine. 

Thy song is done — we are parted now, 

And may never meet again ; 
But, wandering boy, thou hast touch' d a heart, 

And thy song was not in vain : 
God's blessings on thee, poor minstrel boy, 

May a happy lot be thine ! — 
May thy heart go uncorrupted back 

To thine own beloved Rhine ! 



TIIE MOTHER'S MEMORIES OF HER INFANT 
CHILD. 

In the casket of my soul I keep 

Thy form and face, my child — 
Like a primrose-star of love on me 

Frae heaven thou lang hast smiled ; 
I see thy mirthfu' glance — thy hair 

Spread o'er thy brow sae wan — 
And thy cherry lip ; — but I canna kiss 

My dove — my Mary Ann ! 



HER INFANT CHILD. 281 

Like a pleasant thought within the heart, 

Thou in my bosom slept ; 
And o'er thee dreaming there, my watch 

Of gladness aft I kept ! 
In sunlit hours, thy artless words, 

As round my knee thou ran, 
Were sweet wild music to my soul — 

My lovesome Mary Ann ! 

The jewel of my young life's crown — 

The flower of hope wast thou ; 
But the gem Affection prized is lost — 

The flower is withered now ! 
Short was thy stay in thy mother s hame, 

And short thy earthly span : 
But monie a heart was in love with thee, 

My dearest Mary Ann ! 

How thou wouldst clasp thy mother's neck, 

Thy mother's lips to kiss ! — « 
To be by thee in thy love caress'd 

Was a dream of heaven-like bliss ; 
And deeper joy than mine, my dove, 

Ne'er bless'd since time began, 
As I clasp'd, and kiss'd, and gazed upon 

My infant Mary Ann ! 

My life ! my love ! my precious babe ! 

How dear thou wast to me 
That mother only knows whom God 

Hath bless'd with such as thee ! 



282 A ROMAUNT. 

As the violet fades and the daisy dies 
When the blast of Yule has blawn ; 

The cauldrife hands of Death have stown 
My darling Mary Ann ! 



A ROMAUNT. 

The evening bell hath the curfew toll'd, 
And the cloud of night on the earth hath roll'd ; 
The sea waves fall on the sandy shore, 
Like sullen things, with an angry roar : 
'Tis the lonesome,, sleeping, midnight hour — 
Why beams yon light from the castle tower ? 
Why tarries that boat on the surfy strand ? 
And why doth each rower clutch a brand ? 

Two forms appear through the dusky night — 
'Tis a rover free and a lady bright : 
She hath left her father's castle hall, 
His broad fair lands, and his riches all, 
The bride of a wanderer wild to be, 
And to make her home on the tameless sea : — 
Now the boat is launch'd on its ocean way, 
And onward it speeds o'er the waters gray. 

The morning is up, but the clouded sun 
Throws not a ray on yon castle dun ; 
And oh ! there is weeping and wailing there— 
The father's moan and the mother's prayer 



THE MOSSY STANE. 283 

For never again in their home shall be 
The lost one, who sails on the foaming sea : — 
The flower hath been snapp'd from its parent stem, 
And the garden hath lost its brightest gem. 

Now in bright sunshine — now in gloomy shade — 
That ship on the deep her home hath made : 
She has felt the gales of many a land, 
And her prow has look'd on many a strand : 
But her hour hath come — the wild winds rave — 
There swims on her track a giant wave : 
And the rover wild, and his fair ladye, 
Are sleeping now in the dark green sea ! 



THE MOSSY STANE. 

That ill-faur'd lump of mossy stane 
Has lain amang the breckans lane, 
And neither groan' d nor made a mane, 

For years six thousand ! 
That's fortitude — the stoics gane 

"Wad wagg'd their pows ont ! 

The heather-blossom fades awa — 
The breathing winds of Summer blaw — 
The plovers wail — the muircock's craw — 

111 lay a bodle, 
It snoozes on through rain and snaw, 

Nor fykes its noddle ! 

T 



284 THE MOSSY STANB. 

It's pleasant wi' a stane to crack, 
It ne'er objects to word or fact ; 
And then they ha'e an unco knack 

Of listening well — 
They a' the story dinna tak' 

Upo' themsel'. 

Aweel, whunstane ! since there ye lay, 
The world's gane monie an unco way — 
We've a' been heathens — now we pray, 

And sing and wheeple, 
And mak' a lang to do and say 

Beside the steeple ! 

And there cam' men o' meikle power, 
Wha gart the frighted nations glowr, 
And did wi' swords mankind devour : 

Snoozed ye through all ? — 
Faith ! ye think little of a stour, 
Upon my saul ! 

Stane ! if your lugs could better hear, 
I doubt me if 't wad mend your cheer 
If ye but kent — I fear, I fear — 

That sorrow's round ye ; 
Though hard as tyrants' hearts, fu' sair 

The tale wad wound ye ! 

How priests, and kings, and superstition, 
Have marr'd and ruin'd man's condition, 
If I could tell, ye'd need a sneeshin' 
To clear your een : 



THE WANDERER. 285 

Lord, stane ! but they deserve the creeshhx' 
They'll get, I ween ! 

Look, there's the sun ! the lambkins loupin' 
Are o'er amang the heather coupin' ; 
The corbies 'mang the rocks are roupin' 

Sae dull and drowsy ; 
This Summer day, my cracks, I'm houpin*. 

To life will rouse ye I 

Na, there ye lie — nought troubles thee : 
Ye hae some use as well as me, 
Nae doubt ; but what that use can be 

The thought doth wrack me ; 
Wi' a' my een I canna see, 

The devil tak' me ! 

I'm sure there's naething made in vain-— 
No even a mossy auld whunstane : 
Ye Powers aboon ! I ken, I ken — 

Auld stane sae bonnie, 
Ye just was made that I fu' fain 

Might rhyme upon ye. 



THE WANDERER. 

Where roam the feet of the Distant One — the Wanderer 

far away ? 
Doth a tropic forest shelter him from the blaze of a tropic 

day? 



286 THE WANDERER. 

Doth he rest 'mong the glorious golden flowers of an 

Indian valley lone ? 
Doth he drink of the Arab's desert fount ? ! where 

hath the Wanderer gone ? 

He went forth from his father's house while Hope was 

burning in his heart — 
He went forth in joy while exultingly from his lips a 

song did part. 
Hath the Hope decay'd ? Hath the Brightness fled ? 

Hath the spirit sorrow known ? 
Or rejoices he in the sunlight still ? — ! where hath the 

Wanderer gone ? 

Hath he drunk the spirit-draught of Love from the eye 

of an Indian maid ? 
Doth he linger now with a dear-loved one in an Eastern 

forest's shade ? 
Hath he then forgot his infant dreams and his native 

mountains lone, 
For the deep dark glance of a maiden's eye ? — ! where 

hath the Wanderer gone ? 

Back to the streams of his youthhood's land, why hath 

not the Wanderer come, 
To rejoice in his mothers smile again, and to sit in his 

fathers home ? 
Hath his cheek grown pale ? Hath his eye grown dim? 

Doth he sleep beneath the stone ? 
Is his noble heart all mouldering now ? — ! where hath 

the Yfanderer gone ? 



THE WANDERER. 287 

O ! sings he the songs of another land, or remembers lie 

yet his own ? 
Hath the veil of dim Forgetfulness on his once-warm 

heart been thrown ? 
Why tarries he where a sister's eye hath never o'er him 

shone ? — 
Where a brother's voice h6 hath never heard ? — O ! where 

hath the Wanderer gone ? 

Pure Stars ! as ye shine with unsleeping eye, can ye tell 
us ought of him ? 

Bright Sun ! doth he watch in a distant land your Even- 
ing light grow dim ? 

Strong Winds ! have ye fann'd his cheek as o'er the earth 
ye have hurried on ? 

Sun, Winds, and Stars ! can ye answer us ?— ! where 
hath the Wanderer gone ? 

The sound of his foot shall be heard no more in his 

mourning Fathers hall — 
His sweet young voice on his Mothers ear again shall 

never fall ; 
His steed untired in the stable stands, and his hound 

may hunt alone ; 
For the woeful voice of the Desolate calls, " ! where 

hath the Wanderer gone?" 

In a coral cave of the dark green sea, the Wanderer's 

bed is made — 
'Mong the mysteries old of the mighty deep, the waves 

his couch have spread ; 



288 THE RUINED MANOR-HOUSE. 

And the tempest sweeps o'er his watery grave with a 

drear arid sullen moan, 
And asks, with its wildly wailing voice, " O ! where 

hath the Wanderer gone ? " 



THE RUINED MANOR-HOUSE. 

Against the sky these walls their shadows cast, 
Tottering and crumbling in their mossy age, 

Like dim remembrances of moments past 

Which time hath almost swept from Memory's page : 

Long ages they have faced the bitter blast, 
As the stern Stoic bears the world's rage ; 

But now the ceaseless breath of cold Decay 

Is wasting them, like snows of Spring, away ! 

Four walls ! — four roofless walls ! — and this is all 
That Desolation's gathering hand hath left 

Of tower, and pinnacle, and gilded hall ; 
The roof is gone — the wall of rock is cleft — 

The moonlight through each crevice down doth fall, 
Giving the spider light to weave its weft ! 

Is this the end of Pride, and Pomp, and Power ? — 

The vanity and glory of an hour ! 

Is this the hearth round which have often met 

The Young, the Fair, the Manly, and the Gay ? — 

Is this the hall where dancers oft were set 

With joyous Mirth, till broke the lagging day ? 



THE RUINED MANOR-HOUSE. 289 

Are these the chambers of luxurious state, 

Where men were far too proud to kneel and pray ? 
Is this the home where Joy both loud and free 
From year to year so blithesome used to be ? 

Is this the hearth ? — A tree with fruit and flowers 
Doth o'er it spread its branches, budding green ! 

Is this the hall ? The nettle buildeth bowers 
Where loathsome toad and beetle black are seen ! 

Are these the chambers ? Fed by dankest showers 
The slimy worm hath o'er them crawling been ! 

Is this the home ? The owlet's dreary cry 

Unto that asking makes a sad reply ! 

Where are the bright young eyes that here have beam'd ? 

Where are the happy hearts that here have beat ? 
Where is the Warrior, grim and proud who seem'd ? 

Where is the sitter in the Old Man's seat ? 
Where is the Joy that like rich sunlight gleam'd ? 

Where are the faces fair, the nimble feet ? 
Where are the Love, the Glory, and the Light, 
That here had built for them a temple bright ? 

Bright eyes are dim, and mouldering in the clay ; 

The happy hearts are moveless evermore ; — 
The Warrior, — Death hath met him in the fray ; — 

The Old Man sits no longer by the door ; 
The light of Joy grew dim, and pass'd away ; 

Fair faces keep not now the smile they wore ; 
Now Love, and Light, and Glory, all have gone ; 
And nought remains but moss-clad dreary stone ! 



200 THE SAXON CHAPEL. 

Is this the whole ? and has this work been wrought 
To fill our hearts with gloom while dwelling here ?- 

Amid decaying ruins have we sought 

And found no search-rewarding jewel near ? — 

No ! we have learn' d a lesson cheaply bought — 
A lesson which our gloom doth brightly cheer, — 

That though this earth be Woe and Vanity, 

There is a Brighter Land beyond yon Holy Sky ! 



THE SAXON CHAPEL. 

A building rear'd by Saxon hands ! 

A fane, where Saxon hearts might pray ! 
They worshipped here long ages past — 
We worship here to-day ! 

Since that low window-arch was bent, 

There have been many a rise and fall : 
And this lone temple of the poor 

Stands preaching over all ! 

The rude, rough, Saxon, rear'd it up, 

The temple of his God to be ; 
And here, in simple earnestness, 

He came and bent the knee. 

Then came the Norman, in his pride, 
Attended by his Saxon slaves ; 



THE SAXON CHAPEL. 291 

And then the priest of later times 

Sang mass above their graves ! 

The Mind grew free — the ancient faith, 

With all its pomp and pageantry, 
Fell down ; — a spirit stern arose, 

And said it should not be ! 

And now, to-day the peasant hind 

Beside that lowly altar knelt ; 
And, 'neatli that roof, had feelings such 
As Normans, Saxons, felt ! 

Come, Saxon, in thy rude attire — 

Come, Norman, in tby coat of mail — 
Come, priest, with cross and counted beads — 
And, Parson, do not fail. 

Beneath one roof ye all have pray'd — 
Upon one floor have bent the knee ; 
Your creeds are far asunder rent — 

But come and answer me. 

As then you knelt, did upward rise 

Each heart in love and gratitude ? 
Did each, in different form and name ; 
Adore the True and Good ? 

They answer, Yes ! Then vanish all 

Into oblivion once again : 
There is a holy lesson here ; 

I'll carry it to men ! 



292 MADNESS. 

The Priest may sneer — the Bigot curse — 

I care not for the form and creed ; 
The earnest will be bless' d — the true 

And pure, in word and deed ! 

The hands that rear'd these crumbliug walls— 
The hearts that long have ceased to live — 
They did their part — a temple rear'd — 

Which lessons bright doth give. 



MADNESS. 

Grief made its home within my breast 
Till my heart grew sad and cold — 

Till my sunken cheek, and my dull, dim eye, 
Of its blighting presence told. 

A blacker Fiend came mocking then : — 

It was Madness in its ire ; 
And its maniac -hands my heart-strings wrenclfd, 

And it wrapt my brain in fire : — 

And it fought with Reason in my breast 

Till it had its direful will- 
Till bound in its chains was the struggling soul, 

Which was wildly conscious still. 

I spoke with Madness' raving voice, 
And I glared with Madness' eyes : 



MADNESS, 293 

Flesli did its work, while the Spirit wept 
O'er the body's sacrifice. 

My feet and hands with chains were bound. 

And my body suffer'd blows ; 
And the dark Fiend shriek'd from the Spirit's home 

As the lash in menace rose. 

The eye that once look'd kind on me 

Now fearful o'er me stole ; 
Then the Fiend would turn with a mocking laugh 

To its trembling victim soul. 

Months, years of torture such as this 

I do remember now, 
Till my hair grew white and my body w£ak, 

And wrinkled grew my brow : 

And then there came a dreary blank 

When all was dark within — 
A howling night of unutter'd woe 

Where a moonbeam could not win» 

And in that night I had a dream : — 

I thought that far away 
From the dungeon deep — my torture-home — 

On a morning I did stray. 

I thought I lay within a wood. 

In its glorious summer prime ; 
And I heard the voice of Him who spans 

Eternity and Time. 



294 life's pilgrimage. 

He bade the Fiend resign its prey, 

And the prison' d soul go free ; 
And the dream was o'er, for I stood restored 

Beneath the forest-tree ! 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 

Infant ! I envy thee 
Thy seraph smile — thy soul, without a stain, 
Angels around thee hover in thy glee 

A look of love to gain ! 

Thy paradise is made 
Upon thy mother's bosom, and her voice 
Is music rich as that by spirits shed 

When blessed things rejoice ! 

Bright are the opening flowers — 
Ay, bright as thee, sweet babe, and innocent, 
They bud and bloom ; and straight their infant hours, 

Like thine, are done and spent ! 

BOY ! infancy is o'er ! — 
Go with thy playmates to the grassy lea, 
Let thy bright eye with yon far laverock soar, 

And blithe and happy be ! 

Go, crow thy cuckoo notes 
Till all the greenwood alleys loud are ringing — 



life's pilgrimage. 295 

Go, listen to the thousand tuneful throats 
That 'mong the leaves are singing ! 

I would not sadden thee, 
Nor wash the rose upon thy cheek with tears : 
Go, while thine eye is bright — unbent thy knee — 

Forget all cares and fears ! 

YOUTH ! is thy boyhood gone ?— 
The fever hour of life at length has come, 
And passion sits in reason's golden throne, 

While sorrow's voice is dumb ! 

Be glad ! it is thy hour 
Of love ungrudging — faith without reserve — 
And, from the Right, 111 hath not yet the power 

To make thy footsteps swerve ! 

Now is thy time to know 
How much of trusting goodness lives on earth ; 
And rich in pure sincerity to go 

Rejoicing in thy birth ! 

Youth's sunshine unto thee — 
Love, first and dearest, has unveil'd her face, 
And thou hast sat beneath the trysting tree 

In love's first fond embrace ! 

Enjoy thy happy dream, 
For life hath not another such to give ; 
The stream is flowing — love's enchanted stream ; 

Live, happy dreamer, live ! 



296 life's pilgrimage. 

Though sorrow dwelleth here, 
And falsehood, and impurity, and sin, 
The light of love, the gloom of earth to cheer, 

Comes sweetly, sweetly in ! 

'Tis o'er — thou art a Man — 
The struggle and the tempest both begin 
Where he who faints must fail — he fight who can, 

A victory to win ! 

Say, toilest thou for Gold ? 
With all that earth can give of drossy hues 
Compensate for that land of love foretold, 

Which Mammon makes thee lose ? 

Or waitest thou for Power ? 
A proud ambition, trifler, doth thee raise ! 
To be the gilded bauble of the hour 

That fools may wond'ring gaze ! 

But would'st thou be a Man — 
A lofty, noble, uncorrupted thing, 
Beneath whose eye the false might tremble wan, 

The good with gladness sing ? 

Go, cleanse thy heart, and fill 
Thy soul with love and goodness ; let it be 
Like yonder lake, so holy, calm, and still, 

And full of purity ! 

This is thy task on earth — 
This is thy eager manhood's proudest goal ; — 



SONG FOR A SUMMER EVENING. 207 

To cast all meanness and world- worship forth — 
And thus exalt the soul ! 

Tis Manhood makes the man 
A high-soul' d freeman or a fetter d slave, 
The Mind a temple fit for God to span, 

Or a dark dungeon-grave ! 

God doth not man despise, 
He gives him soul — mind — heart — that living flame ; 
Nurse it, and upwards let it brightly rise 

To Heaven, from whence it came ! 

Go hence, go hence, and make 
Thy spirit pure as morning, light and free ! 
The Pilgrim shrine is won, and I awake — 

Come to the woods with me ! 



SONG FOR A SUMMER EVENING. 

There 's a drap o' dew on the blackbird's wing 

Where the willows wave the burnie over, 
And the happy bird its sang doth sing 

By the wimpling waves that the green leaves cover ! 
Sing louder yet, thou bonnie, bonnie bird, 

There ? s neither cloud nor storm to fear ye, 
But thy sang, though glad as ear ever heard, 

Is wae to mine when I meet my dearie ! 



298 IT 's NAB FUN, THAT ! 

Yon laverock lilts 'mang the snawy clouds 

That float like a veil o'er the breast of heaven ; 
And its strain comes down to the summer woods 

Like the voice of the bless' d and GoD-forgiven ! 
Sing, laverock, sing thy maist holy sang, 

For the light o' heaven is round and near ye, 
Syne song through thy fluttering heart will gang, 

As it runs through mine when I meet my dearie ! 

The daisy blinks by the broom-bush side, 

Pure as the eye o' a gladsome maiden — 
Fair as the face o' a bonnie bride 

When her heart wi' the thoughts o' love is laden. 
Bloom fairer yet, thou sweet lowly flower, 

There's ne'er a heart sae hard as steer thee, 
I will think o' thee in that gloaming hour 

When I meet 'mang the wild green woods my dearie 



IT'S NAE FUN, THAT!* 

ANE CANTIE SANG. 

Ye may laugh brawly i' the now, 

Ye may joke as you like ; 
But ye shouldna say the kinnie's good 

Afore ye tak' the bike. 

* It may not be out of place to state the circumstances under whicl 
the above " cantie sang" was written. In a company, one evening, i 
Edinburgh, where Mr. Nicoll was present, a young lady was very muc 
rallied on the subject of marriage ; till, thinking that the joke wa 
carried a little too far, she put an end to the teasing by exclaiming— 
" It^s nae fun, that ! " — a phrase which at once caught the humour o 
the poet, and the song was produced that same night. 



it's nae fun, that! 29$ 

Love does weel eneugh to joke about 

When comes the gloamin' bat ; 
But marriage is an awfu 5 thing : — 

It 's nae fun, that I 

We twa are geyan young yet, 

We ha'ena meikle gear, 
And, if glaikitly we yokit, 

We wad aye be toilin' sair ; 
Maybe poverty wad mak' us 

Like our collie and the cat : — 
An' tearfu' een and scartit lugs— - 

It 's nae fun, that ! 

The men are in a hurry aye — 

Will ye gie a body time ? 
And yet, I needna forward look, 

I canna see a styme ; 
To gi'e a body's seF awa 

For — 'od ! I kenna what, 
It gars a thoughtless lassie think — 

It 's nae fun, that ! 

And now the cloud is on your brow, 

I shouldna vex you sae ; 
Yet in my last free maiden hour, 

Why mind you what I say ? 
My first love and my last are you, 

My lassie's heart you caught — 
O ! guess my love by what ye feel — 

It 's nae fun, that ! 



BOO THE LINNET, 



SONNET TO MR. J. R. F. 

Domestic love sits brooding o'er thy hearth, 
Like the fair cushat o'er the forest-boughs ; 
And happiness unto thy home is bound 

Close as the fragrance to the summer rose : 
For woman's angel purity is there, 
And woman's hand so soft and face so fair, 
And woman's heart of love, and voice of song 
Soft as the linnet's, hedgerow leaves among. 
This heart so glad with thee in moments past, 
Can wish for thee no better than thou hast ; 
But in this silent hour, when earth is gray, 
To Him who gave it all, this heart can pray : — 
" Where Joy is now^ oh ! send no future pain — 
May what is happy— happy aye remain !" 



THE LINNET, 



The songs of Nature, holiest, best are they ! 

The sad winds sighing through the leafy trees — 
The lone lake's murmurs to the mountain breeze — 
The streams' soft whispers, as they fondly stray 
Through dingles wild and over flowery leas, 
Are sweetly holy ; but the purest hymn — 
A melody like some old prophet-lay — 

Is Thine, poured forth from hedge, and thicket dim — 

Linnet! wild Linnet! 



THE LINNET. 301 

The poor, the scorned and lowly, forth may go 

Into the woods and dells, where leaves are green ; 

And 'mong the breathing forest flowers may lean. 
And hear thy music wandering to and fro, 

Like sunshine glancing o'er the summer scene. 

Thou poor mans songster ! — neither wealth nor 
power. 
Can match the sweetness thou around dost throw ! 

Oh ! bless Thee for the joy of many an hour — 

Linnet ! wild Linnet ! 

In sombre forest, gray and melancholy, 

Yet sweet withal and full of love and peace, 
And 'mid the furze wrapped in a golden fleece 

Of blossoms, and in hedgerows green and lowly ; 
On thymy banks, where wild-bees never cease 
Their murmur-song, thou hast thy home of love S 

Like some lone hermit, far from sin and folly, 

'Tis Thine through forest fragrancies to rove — 

Linnet ! wild Linnet ! 

Some humble heart is sore and sick with grief, 

And straight thou comest with thy gentle song 
To wile the sufferer from his hate or wrong, 

By bringing Nature's love to his relief. 

Thou churmest by the sick child's window long., 
Till racking pain itself be wooed to sleep ; 

And when away have vanished flower and leaf. 

Thy lonely wailing voice for them doth weep — 

Linnet ! wild Linnet ! 



302 DEATH. 

God saw how much of woe, and grief, and care, 

Mans faults and follies on the earth would make ; 

And thee, sweet singer, for his creatures' sake 
He sent to warble wildly everywhere, 

And by thy voice our souls to love to wake. 

Oh ! blessed wandering spirit ! unto thee 
Pure hearts are knit, as unto things too fair, 

And good, and beautiful of earth to be — 

Linnet ! wild Linnet 



DEATH. * 



The dew is on the Summer's greenest grass, 

Through which the modest daisy blushing peeps ; 

The gentle wind that like a ghost doth pass, 
A waving shadow on the corn-field keeps ; 

But I who love them all shall never be 

Again among the woods, or on the moorland lea ! 



The sun shines sweetly — sweeter may it shine !- 
Bless'd is the brightness of a Summer day ; 



It cheers lone hearts ; and why should I repine, 
Although among green fields I cannot stray ! 
Woods ! I have grown, since last I heard you wave, 
Familiar with death, and neighbour to the grave ! 

These words have shaken mighty human souls — 
Like a sepulchre's echo drear they sound — 

* This poem is imagined to be the last, or among the very last, of 
NicolTs compositions. 



DEATH. 303 

E'en as the owl's wild whoop at midnight rolls 

The ivied remnants of old ruins round. 
Yet wherefore tremble ? Can the soul decay ? — 
Or that which thinks and feels in aught e'er fade away? 

Are there not aspirations in each heart, 
After a better, brighter world than this ! 

Longings for beings nobler in each part — 
Things more exalted— steeped in deeper bliss ? 

Who gave us these ? What are they ? Soul ! in thee 

The bud is budding now for immortality ! 

Death comes to take me where I long to be ; 

One pang, and bright blooms the immortal flower ; 
Death comes to lead me from mortality, 

To lands which know not one unhappy hour : — 
I have a hope — a faith ; — — from sorrow here 
I'm led by Death away — why should I start and fear ! 

If I have loved the forest and the field, 
Can I not love them deeper, better, there ? 

If all that Power hath made, to me doth yield 
Something of good and beauty — something fair — 

Freed from the grossness of mortality, 

May I not love them all, and better all enjoy ? 

A change from woe to joy — from earth to heaven, 
Death gives me this — it leads me calmly where 

The souls that long ago from mine were riven 

May meet again ! Death answers many a prayer. 

Bright day ! shine on — be glad : — Days brighter far 

Are stretched before my eyes than those of mortals are ! 



304 DEATH. 

I would be laid among the wildest flowers, 
I would be laid where happy hearts can come : 

The worthless clay I heed not ; but in hours 
Of gushing noontide joy, it may be some 

"Will dwell upon my name ; and I will be 

A happy spirit there, Affection's look to see. 

Death is upon me, yet T fear not now : — 
Open my chamber-window — let me look 

Upon the silent vales — the sunny glow 
That fills each alley, close, and copsewood nook : — 

I know them — love them — mourn not them to leave ; 

Existence and its change my spirit cannot grieve ! 



THE END. 



EDINBURGH : 

Printed by William Tait, Prince's Street. 



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